Tag: perpetual war

Iran Offers $30,000 Bounty for Killing or Capturing American Troops — Double If Carried Out By a Woman

Iran’s military is offering cash rewards for anyone who kills or captures an American service member as fighting with the U.S. and its allies continues across the Middle East.

Iranian Army chief Amir Hatami announced Sunday that anyone who kills or captures an “invading American military personnel” and hands them over will receive the equivalent of approximately $30,000.

“Anyone who kills or captures and hands over an invading American military personnel will receive a reward equivalent to $30,000 or 5 billion tomans from Iran’s Army,” Hatami said.

Female participants are being offered twice as much.

“Courageous Iranian women who carry out such an action will receive double the reward,” he added.

According to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, Hatami claimed the scheme was established following a “large number of requests” from people seeking to provide financial support.

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Exclusive: Palestine Action facing new rigged ‘terrorism’ trials

As the British state seeks to destroy Palestine Action, a new trial is underway in which a judge has threatened defendants with a ‘terrorism connection’ if they explain the motives behind their activism. 

It is one of three such trials in which the government has muzzled defendants, blinded jurors and banned local media coverage to guarantee convictions.

The Grayzone can exclusively reveal that hearings have been underway in the trial of the so-called Teledyne Three. These three defendants damaged the clean room of a UK factory which produces parts for the F-35 aircraft which Israel has used to carry out an array of crimes against civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip, and beyond. They are members of the direction action protest collective, Palestine Action, which the British state has designated as a “terrorist entity” in the face of international condemnation. 

The presiding judge in the Teledyne Three case, Driver, has imposed restrictions on the defense which threatens them with a “terrorism connection” if they attempt to explain the motives behind their actions.

The British media is currently forbidden from reporting on the trial or the draconian measures applied by the judge.   

The Teledyne Three case is one of three ongoing trials in which the British state is intensifying its assault on Palestine Action by muzzling defendants and blinding jurors. Stretching the definition of terrorism to the point of absurdity, and applying it as promiscuously as possible, forms the heart of the government’s strategy.

This February, the government’s relentless attempts to designate Palestine Action as a terrorism entity was found “unlawful”. However, the Home Office’s July 2025 designation of the protest group as a “terrorist entity” remains under final appeal. Meanwhile, separate ongoing court proceedings against PA actionists testify to a systematic campaign of dubious legal tactics to sentence defendants as terrorists, drastically increasing their penalties if found guilty.

As first revealed by The Grayzone, British authorities stacked the legal deck against a group of PA defendants known as the Filton Six. A judge imposed severe restrictions on what the defense could say, what the jury was allowed to hear, and which defenses the jurors were allowed to consider. The jury was not even able to know that the defendants could be sentenced as terrorists if found guilty of lesser criminal convictions. The entire case appeared engineered to guarantee convictions. 

In June, four were convicted, receiving jail sentences as “terrorists” of five to eight years.

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Somali Piracy Surges Amid Hormuz Blockade

The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has forced hundreds of commercial ships onto longer routes around Africa, and Somali pirates are moving quickly to exploit the sudden increase in traffic off the continent’s eastern coast. Oil tankers MT Honour 25, MT Eureka and MT Asana were hijacked in the Gulf of Aden and off Puntland between April and July 2026, the largest attacks by Somali pirates in years. The Iran war has now delivered these groups more targets, spread across thousands of miles of ocean, while diverting naval resources to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.

Somali piracy peaked in 2011 before an international crackdown reduced attacks to a fraction of their former levels. The first major revival came in late 2023, when Houthi attacks in the Red Sea forced hundreds of vessels away from the Suez Canal and around the Cape of Good Hope. And with U.S. forces all diverted to the war against Iran in the Persian Gulf, it’s largely a free-for-all for Somali pirates.  Unlike the disorganized bands of the early 2000s, today’s Somali pirates are ranging much farther from shore, and their operations have become much more sophisticated. And perhaps even more concerning, according to reports from a UN panel of experts, there is now direct coordination between Yemeni militants and Somali networks.

In exchange for creating maritime chaos to keep Western navies distracted, the Houthis have supplied Somali pirate cells with advanced weaponry, military training and precision GPS tracking devices to pinpoint commercial hulls. Al-Shabaab–one of the most lethal terrorist groups in Africa–provides onshore logistical backing along parts of the Somali coast where pirate gangs launch operations or hold hijacked vessels. Intelligence reports indicate the group receives a generous cut of up to 30% from successful maritime ransom payouts.

According to a joint study by Interpol, the World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Horn of Africa piracy generated over $400 million in ransom payments from 179 hijacked ships between 2005 and 2012, averaging roughly $2.23 million per ship. The money follows a structured economy, with pirate crews receiving a standard 10% to 15% fee, local financiers claim 30% to 50% for funding food, fuel and weapons, while the rest is laundered into legitimate businesses, according to the study. And it’s only becoming more lucrative with time. 

A June 30, 2026, analysis by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) reports that ransom demands have been made for all three commercial vessels hijacked in the current wave.

The demand for Eureka was reportedly $10 million.

Separately, the pirates holding Honour 25 have demanded $3 million for the tanker, cargo and crew. 

GI-TOC says pirates received $1.2 million-$1.5 million for the release of the Chinese fishing vessel Liao Dong Yu 578 in March this year. The same vessel had reportedly generated another $2 million ransom in 2024. GI-TOC says counter-piracy officials believe the latest payment helped catalyze the current wave of attacks.

The Gulf of Guinea is yet another piracy hotspot in Africa thanks to the region’s riches in oil and gas as well as a well-trained militia due the Delta’s secessionist movement. While local law enforcement and naval forces have managed to curb attacks in shallower waters, pirates are highly adaptable to new environments. Now, they are using heavily armed mother ships to strike targets well outside state jurisdictions and exclusive economic zones. The region’s pirate networks now operate with military-grade weapons, an intricate shipping intelligence network and complicated financial backing.

War-risk insurance premiums for commercial shipping transiting the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf spiked by over 1,000%–surging from pre-conflict levels of roughly 0.15%–0.25% of a vessel’s value up to 7.5% and 10% per voyage shortly after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in March.

With African maritime zones highly vulnerable due to a lack of equipment and manpower, and with American forces diverted to the Persian Gulf indefinitely, piracy sees its biggest opportunity yet. It means an African diversion isn’t necessarily going to avoid risk premiums.

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Russia Threatens to Board British and French Ships in Revenge For ‘Shadow Fleet’ Seizures

President Vladimir Putin threatened retaliation against British and French ‘pirates’ over the seizure of Russian ‘shadow fleet’ oil tankers, saying his navy was ready to start capturing European ships in return.

European states are engaged in “nothing less than piracy and robbery” when they seize Russian shadow fleet tankers moving sanctions-busting oil, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. Speaking from the navy cruiser Varyag on a visit to observe the culmination of a major series of exercises off Russia’s east coast, Putin said his forces were ready to “respond in kind”. Several other Kremlin figures quickly followed their leaders’ remarks to add their own threats.

Russian state media reported that President Putin said: “I would like to draw attention to the EU’s recent decisions. We see that the authorities of some countries are attempting to restrict the movement of our economic operators’ ships in violation of international maritime law. I want to emphasise that these ships are peaceful. Recently, they’ve even considered seizing our ships and selling property stolen from us.”

President Putin called these acts “nothing less than piracy and robbery” and warned, “If this begins to happen in practice, we will be forced to respond in kind”, stating he’d already given such instructions to his Defence Ministry and that seizures could happen “wherever we deem it appropriate”, including the Pacific Ocean.

Admiral Viktor Liina, who commands the Russian Pacific Fleet and was hosting President Putin, specifically cited British and French ships as potential targets and said his forces were ready to commence operations.

Western powers, including the European Union, placed sanctions on Russian oil quickly after the commencement of its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but the Russian Federation quickly found ways around those attempts to hamper its trade, including by shifting its oil exports into a large network of so-called “shadow” tankers. European critics say these ships, typically older vessels that would likely have otherwise been taken out of fleets permitted to transit around European coasts, attempt to defy sanctions by obscuring the origin of the oil cargoes they carry and the ownership of the vessels themselves through convoluted layers of ownership and obscure flagging.

Western states retaliated to this by sanctioning individual ships known to be carrying Russian oil as part of this shadow fleet, with over 630 vessels now listed. Still, much of this trade passes right under the nose of European navies, with hundreds of Russian shadow ships passing through the English Channel every year.

One of these ships was the oil tanker Smyrtos, a Chinese-owned, Indian-crewed vessel sailing under the flag of Cameroon. The Cameroon government came under pressure from European states to strike the Smyrtos off its national register, and when it finally did, the British government took this as a pretext to board and seize the ship for sailing under false or no colours under Article 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Royal Marines fast-roped onto the deck to capture the vessel and cargo, and then guided the tanker into the English harbour of Weymouth, where it remains, months later.

The Indian citizen captain Ajay Pant has been arrested and charged, and is due to appear in a British court in December for defying Western sanctions on Russian oil, the first such case in the world. The remainder of the non-officer crew has been repatriated.

Several other Russian ships have been seized by other Western nations, including France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. While the U.S. has recently gone so far as to sell off former shadow fleet ships for scrap value, Russia appears more wary of lashing out at Washington and has confided its criticism of European powers.

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U.S. Infrastructure Strikes Have Left Iranians in the South Without Livelihoods

When U.S. missiles struck the harbor outside in the port city of Badar Abbas last month, Sajjad saw his livelihood literally go up in smoke.

The small wooden fishing boat that had supported the 56-year-old and his family for years was reduced to a charred husk, along with dozens of other boats lining the docks. Sajjad told Drop Site News that nearly every fisherman he knows lost a vessel that night. Replacing a single boat now costs around 2 billion tomans (around $1,050)—far beyond what most families can afford.

“Both my children are in university,” Sajjad said. “Everything depended on that boat. Soon, I may not even be able to pay their tuition.”

When U.S. strikes resumed in early July following a two-month pause, the attacks focused heavily on southern Iran. Interviews with residents in hard-hit southern provinces like Khuzestan, Hormozgan, Sistan, and Baluchestan describe strikes not only on military facilities, but also on critical civilian infrastructure, including fishing ports, bridges, telecommunications networks, power plants, hospitals, and transportation corridors.

Dozens of communications towers have been knocked offline in repeated attacks, disrupting internet and telephone services. One attack on a transmission tower near Tappeh Aluakbar in Bandar Abbas killed five people, including a woman who died shielding her son with her body, local residents told Drop Site.

Transportation infrastructure has sustained similar damage. Alireza, a resident of Hormozgan who studies screenwriting and is carefully tracking recent events in the hopes of making a documentary about the war, described strikes on Tappeh Aluakbar overlooking Bandar Abbas, bridges linking Bandar Abbas to Khamir and Rudan, railway infrastructure, and key transportation routes connecting the province. At one destroyed crossing, road crews carved a temporary dirt route through a dry riverbed within hours simply to keep vehicles moving.

The damage extends to the sea as well: Alireza estimates that roughly 300 civilian fishing boats have been destroyed across Bandar Abbas, Bandar Lengeh, Sirik, and Jask, affecting the livelihoods of thousands of people. Two maritime search-and-rescue vessels operating near Bandar Abbas, Qeshm, and Hormuz Island were also put out of service.

Kharg Island, Iran’s principal oil export terminal, has long featured in discussions among U.S. officials and defense analysts as a strategically significant site and was bombed in March during the U.S.-Israeli aerial campaign. According to an Iranian military analyst who spoke to Drop Site on condition of anonymity for security reasons, if the U.S. ever sent ground troops to take over the island, Iran’s ability to reinforce Kharg would depend heavily on the transportation networks running through Hormozgan.

“They’re not simply destroying roads,” the analyst said. “They’re reducing Iran’s ability to move personnel, equipment, and supplies before any future operation ever begins.”

Residents and medical workers in Khuzestan also describe the toll on civilians caused by the bombing campaign, particularly children.

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High-End Russian Escort Plants Trash Bin Bomb That Kills Ukrainian Submarine Commander Defector on Orders of Kiev

Not a word of condemnation of Kiev’s bombing spree by the Western media.

While all the MSM trumpets that Ukraine is ‘turning the tables in the war’ and highlights every single missile and drone strike on Russian territory, there’s one aspect of this war that is literally booming.

The Kiev bombing campaign abroad: be it a Ukrainian oligarch in Monaco, a Russian General in Moscow or a Submarine commander defector in Crimea, the ‘defenders of democracy’ are blasting away, as the West applauds.

This last Thursday, a Ukrainian submarine commander who defected to Russia was killed when a Russian high-end escort, acting on Kiev’s orders, blew him up with a bomb hidden inside a trash bin.

The 32-year-old Russian woman, later identified as Margarita Reut, was following orders from Ukraine’s intelligence network to kill Robert Shageev, now an officer in the Kremlin’s Black Sea Fleet, according to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

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Strava Is Still Killing Operational Security — And The Pentagon Still Can’t Stop It

Eight years after the United States military first warned that commercial fitness app data could expose troop movements and endanger personnel, the problem remains unsolved. A new investigation by Sky News found that more than 1,300 Strava users have shared workout data from sensitive U.S. military installations across the Middle East — revealing patrol routes, daily routines, troop movements, and activity at bases that do not appear on any public map.

Many of those users posted under their real names.

The data is not hidden. It is publicly accessible to anyone with a Strava account and the knowledge to look for it. Security analysts told Sky News that Iran could have cross-referenced this fitness tracking information with other intelligence streams to monitor American forces in real time and identify potential targets for attack. Sky News further identified instances from Bahrain and Jordan where real time military operations relocation of personnel through changes in posted Strava workouts were conducted before those locations were then attacked by the Iran-aligned forces.

These concerns have been known for some time. The Pentagon issued some very clear statements on the use of fitness apps in 2018, after Strava’s workouts were posted on a military fitness tracking heat map. New policies were put in place and new guidelines were issued.

As of 2026, workouts and runs from classified bases are still posted on Strava — including RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. Sky News also documented posted workouts from Strava from the Dimona nuclear research facility in Israel.

The real question is, why can’t the agency charged with the protection of our U.S. service members implement a basic digital discipline policy when corporate security teams have likely put similar policies into practice years ago?

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CCP Agent Buys a Listening Post Next to the White House

Location, location, location.

According to the Daily Caller, on July 21, a group called the Philip Qiu and Family Foundation paid $8.4 million for a hundred-year-old office building in DC.

What’s the big deal? It’s about 650 feet from the White House. That’s prime real estate… if your business is spying on the White House.

The buyer, Qiu Feili, is a former Shanghai police detective who later enrolled in an executive MBA program complete with a “team-building” wargame. Photos show him in camo, holding a rifle. University materials brag that he personally took out a third of the opposing side and posted the best individual marksmanship score in the group. Cool cool cool.

Since then, Qiu has climbed the ranks of the United Front Work Department, the CCP’s intelligence recruitment machine, eventually chairing the Shanghai Overseas Chinese Foundation. His circle connects straight into China’s actual spy services, the MPS and the MSS.

Qiu’s own assessment of the Party he serves, from 2021: it’s “like a kind, but firm parent.” Sure. The kind of parent who buys the building next door and points a listening device at your bedroom window. If Shelley were writing this newsletter, I’m sure she’d have something to say about that.

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Huntsville Defense Firm Unveils Homegrown “Firefly” Laser That Zaps Enemy Drones in Seconds

A Huntsville, Alabama defense company gave an up-close demonstration this week of a powerful new anti-drone laser system designed to knock unmanned aerial threats out of the sky before they can endanger U.S. military personnel or American civilians.

KBR and its Huntsville-based subsidiary Kord demonstrated FIREFLY, a mobile high-energy laser weapon designed to detect, track, and destroy unmanned aircraft before they can reach American troops, civilian gatherings, or critical infrastructure.

Attendees were required to put on laser-protection goggles before the test began. On a live screen, observers watched as the system’s sensors and AI-assisted targeting technology identified and followed a drone.

Then FIREFLY took it down.

Axios reported that the truck-mounted 20-kilowatt system disabled the quadcopter in under four seconds. Kord officials said the onboard batteries provide roughly 15 minutes of total “laser-on time,” the unit can be deployed in about 30 minutes, and an operator can learn the controls in as little as five minutes.

“This is a homegrown product,” KBR’s David Zoller said, according to WAFF.

“I think often we can look at the work that happens in Huntsville, you see Redstone, you see all the traffic and everything, and you kinda have to wonder what’s going on over there,” Zoller continued. “Well, it’s protecting the people, and this is one of the methods that we’re doing it.”

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Boeing Unveils Cheap Radar Seeker Built From Off-The-Shelf Parts

Boeing revealed an ultra-low-cost radar seeker Tuesday as this year’s Space and Missile Defense Symposium kicked off in Huntsville, Alabama, pitching it as a way to get missile guidance on more weapons for less money.

Installed in the nose of a missile or bomb, the seeker locates the target and guides the weapon toward it. Seekers are among the most expensive parts of a guided weapon, and Boeing’s argument is that their cost is what limits how many the military can buy.

Boeing’s Ultra Low-Cost Seeker, or ULCS, is an active seeker, meaning it emits its own radar signal rather than relying on one from an aircraft or a ground station. Boeing built it largely from commercial parts adapted for military use, and it is still in development.

The company said it is looking at using the ULCS in its air and missile defense interceptors, its guided bombs and its cruise missiles, because its design allows for reuse across all three rather than requiring a different seeker for each weapon.

Boeing said the seeker is designed for strikes from the air, land or at sea, in any weather and against moving targets. The company ran several tests on the ULCS earlier this summer.

Engineers checked the sensor design in an anechoic chamber, which absorbs stray signal reflections. The seeker also flew aboard a Beechcraft 1900 over land and water, where Boeing said it found and tracked targets as expected.

At Spaceport America in New Mexico, the seeker tracked a passing drone from a fixed position on the ground. Boeing then mounted it on a rocket standing in for a missile and launched it at a second drone carrying a reflector, which bounced radar back as a full-size target would. Boeing said the seeker survived the acceleration and vibration of every test, and detected and tracked its targets each time.

Reuse across weapons is the major selling point, according to Boeing.

“We are developing ULCS with the goal of sharing a common sensor architecture across several of our programs,” said Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems. He said the seeker is modular and built to an open standard so Boeing can fit it to different weapons and change it later without redesigning it.

Boeing already builds seekers for other weapons, some of them for competitors. The company makes the active radar seeker for the Lockheed Martin PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptor and said it drew on that work for ULCS while aiming to build something cheaper for use against less sophisticated threats.

Steve Wright, Boeing’s senior manager for weapon sensors and advanced guidance, said work remains to be done.

“We still have more work to do, but the rapid testing our teams have completed prove[s] that this capability is real and will fundamentally change how we look at seeker affordability across our programs,” he said.

Boeing said its teams are studying the test data and using the results to shape the next round of work, including several flight tests in 2027 that will attempt to more closely replicate real-world scenarios.

Boeing is not alone in its attempts to exploit modularity. On Aug. 10, Lockheed Martin announced Strigo, a line of radio-frequency sensors, missile datalinks and seeker technologies built around the same modular premise, designed to serve a variety of weapons.

Boeing did not say whether its ULCS is being funded internally or attached to any existing funded weapons program. Nor did it say just how ultra-low the cost of its new seeker will be.

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