Tag: sabotage

Musk’s Starlink Is Building An Orbital Bypass As Undersea Cable Sabotage Threats Mount

Undersea telecom cables are critical civilian infrastructure and are increasingly under threat. The wars in Ukraine and Iran have shown how civilian infrastructure can become easy targets.

On Friday, the Financial Times, citing maritime intelligence firm Windward, reported that several Iran-linked vessels slowed or lingered over cable routes in the Gulf of Oman as cable-cutting threats rise. For Gulf-allied states, the challenge is both to protect the cables from sabotage and to keep data centers humming amid Iranian drone threats.

It’s not just cable-cutting threats in the Gulf. Remember in 2024 when Baltic undersea cables were severed between Finland and Germany, causing weeks of “disruption.”

There must be a solution to cable sabotage that could bring parts of the internet down for days, if not weeks, and that solution might be Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Musk joined Ron Baron of Baron Capital on Friday afternoon to discuss several topics, including Starlink buildout and bandwidth, SpaceX Starship launches, the mega AI-chip plant called Terafab, and, of course, with Democrats set to control Congress, the future of orbital compute.

Keeping our focus on what could be the best solution to undersea telecom cables. Well, Musk told Ron: “Starlink version 4 will have 10x the capability of V3 (which itself is 10x better than V2), especially with the long-distance laser links. Our next-gen laser links will be 10-terabits per second. 100x better. And we’ll put 10 of them on.”

The clip of Musk and Baron was shared on X by Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt, in which Musk responded and said, “100 lasers per satellite, each operating above 10 Tb/s, with over 100k satellites should be able to outcompete undersea cables,” adding, “Speed of light in space is ~40% faster than cable and the path is direct, instead of following the outline of land masses.”

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Europe Under Attack? Far-Left Sabotage UK Military Satellite Equipment Supply Chain

Europe faces growing national security risks from violent far-left groups seeking to destroy capitalism and the continent amid weeks of riots, looting and unrest in France and elsewhere.

The chaos has not yet stopped. There was looting and violence in Germany over the weekend and ongoing unrest in France.

An evolution of the revolution may have emerged overnight, as far-left activists reportedly broke into a defense manufacturer’s facility in the UK and destroyed military satellite communications equipment.

Palestine Action knockoff “People Against Genocide” apparently broke into Ultra Intelligence & Communications’ manufacturing facility in Tring, Hertfordshire.

Video shows these revolutionaries taking sledgehammers to portable satellite terminals that were in production. The Cradle says these terminals were “destined for Israel,” but there is no confirmation of that.

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The Pentagon is quietly building an elite new tech sabotage agency

The Pentagon has spent months quietly building an elite new tech agency to help covertly disrupt and sabotage foreign technology programs considered threats to American military superiority.

Neither Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nor any other senior Pentagon official has publicly mentioned the agency since it was established this April — a conspicuous omission for a department that has reveled in announcing other major changes aimed at modernizing the military or adopting hard-nosed new policies against foreign adversaries.

Information on the Technology Support Office, or TSO as it is called internally, is nearly impossible to find on Pentagon websites, and the agency is mentioned by name only in several previously unreported Defense Department historical records and memoranda.

While the specifics of its work are highly classified, POLITICO spoke with 12 current and former U.S. national security officials with varying degrees of knowledge about TSO to understand how the agency came to be, the broad contours of its mission and why its operations are shrouded in secrecy.

Some of these people helped establish TSO or worked closely with it; others attended briefings or spoke with current Pentagon officials about it; and some were familiar with Defense Department intelligence programs now merged into TSO. All were granted anonymity to share sensitive details about the agency that have not been previously reported.

Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, a private equity billionaire and former head of the White House’s Intelligence Advisory Board during President Donald Trump’s first term, led the push inside the Pentagon to create the new agency.

Tom Rakusan, a senior adviser to Feinberg at the Pentagon, has also been closely involved in setting up TSO. Rakusan is a longtime veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service, and most recently worked at Feinberg’s private equity firm, where he focused on emerging technology.

Hegseth and Feinberg established TSO quickly and without attracting outside scrutiny because they largely built the agency by reorganizing two classified Pentagon intelligence programs that have conducted similar clandestine tech-sabotage efforts at a smaller scale since 2023.

But by creating an agency dedicated to expanding that work, the Defense Department is signaling its intent to ramp up a range of aggressive covert activities abroad — potentially including cyberattacks, supply chain disruptions and disinformation operations.

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Massive Gas Pipeline Blast Rocks Damascus Suburbs – 2nd Suspected Sabotage This Week

A huge explosion has rocked a Damascus suburb area on Wednesday evening (local), in what could be the second act of suspected sabotage against natural gas infrastructure in just a few days.

“A gas pipeline exploded Wednesday near the Tishreen power station in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta area in the Damascus countryside,“ Alikhbariah TV reported.

According to more per regional sources, “It said the loud blast heard in Eastern Ghouta was caused by the pipeline explosion near the power station.”

Unconfirmed images are already widely circulating…

Syria had reported at least two acts of major sabotage against its gas infrastructure in the prior six weeks.

One of these events happened Monday, and saw a fire rage out of control for many hours at a gas pipeline between al-Shola and Deir Ezzor following a mystery explosion.

For several years stretching through much of the last decade, Syrian cities – including the capital – have suffered intermittent and long power outages. It was especially during the tail-end of the proxy war to oust Assad that lack of fuel and electricity became a prolonged crisis.

Damascus residents, for example, often had a mere one hour of electricity in their homes per day – if at all. Entire remote villages and towns simply proceeded with daily life amid a total and persistent blackout.

This was to a large degree the result of a US-led sanctions war which in effect strangled the population. US troops had even for years directly occupied Syria’s eastern oil and gas fields, which had been crucial for meeting domestic energy needs.

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Mystery Explosions: Syria’s Recovering Gas Network Keeps Getting Sabotaged

Syria has reported at least two acts of major sabotage against its gas infrastructure in six weeks, and it raises questions over who or what group is behind it, and what this means for future energy transit projects.

Monday evening saw a fire rage out of control for many hours at a gas pipeline between al-Shola and Deir Ezzor following a mystery explosion. 

Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC), which oversees the site, called it an act of sabotage which abruptly halted gas flows from the Jbeissa gas plant to power generation stations, according to details from state-run SANA.

The New Arab writes that “In January, the SPC began pumping raw gas from the Jbeissa fields in Hasakah to the Furqlus gas plant in Homs province, with around 1.2 million cubic metres passing through the network each day to support electricity generation.”

The report adds, “Damascus has also been working to reconnect other major eastern gas facilities to the national network.”

For several years stretching through much of the last decade, Syrian cities – including the capital – have suffered intermittent and long power outages. It was especially during the tail-end of the proxy war to oust Assad that lack of fuel and electricity became a major crisis.

Damascus residents, for example, often had a mere one hour of electricity in their homes per day – if at all. Entire remote villages and towns simply proceeded with daily life amid a total and persistent blackout. This was to a large degree the result of a US-led sanctions war which in effect strangled the population. US troops had even for years directly occupied Syria’s eastern oil and gas fields, which had been crucial for meeting domestic energy needs.

But now after Jolani and his HTS jihadists seized power, and with Washington sanctions declared removed, the country is trying to restore and rebuild services.

While no group has yet claimed responsibility for sabotaging facilities in the east, it illustrates how the country is still in a deeply unstable situation.

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Coordinated Sabotage Hits Dutch Rail Network at 20+ Sites, Sparking Chaos as Questions Mount Over Security

The Netherlands woke to transport chaos Tuesday after suspected coordinated sabotage crippled major railway routes, exposing just how easily critical infrastructure can be thrown into disarray while Dutch and European leaders increasingly focus their attention on threats from abroad.

According to reports from the Dutch media, objects deliberately fastened to railway tracks triggered safety systems across central and northern Netherlands, bringing trains to a standstill and leaving commuters stranded. ProRail, which manages the country’s rail infrastructure, said the evidence left little doubt that somebody had intentionally interfered with the network.

Workers began discovering sections of pipe attached to rails at around 5:30 a.m. Reports initially identified roughly 20 affected locations, while later accounts said security systems had been disrupted at more than 30 points.

The method wasn’t particularly sophisticated, but the consequences were enormous. By fooling track circuits into detecting trains where none existed, the objects automatically turned signals red and shut affected sections of railway.

Near Steenwijk, the situation became more dangerous when a train actually struck one of the pipes. Nobody was injured, according to ProRail, but deliberately putting material onto active railway lines clearly carried risks extending far beyond delayed commuters.

“We have been to these places and carried out investigations and found materials that were intentionally put there,” ProRail spokeswoman Joke van der Cruysen told NOS. “So we can say the railway has been sabotaged.”

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France: Authorities investigate train derailment that injured 44 for possible sabotage

French authorities are investigating a train derailment in Normandy that injured 44 people for possible sabotage after a piece of rail was found on the track.

The regional train was carrying 186 passengers from Rouen to Caen when it derailed Friday evening at Cléon, causing one carriage to tip onto its side.

A spokeswoman for France’s national police communications service, Service d’Information et de Communication de la Police Nationale (SICOP), told the Associated Press that a piece of rail found on the track was “probably” linked to the derailment.

“The reasons for its presence are unknown and will have to be determined by the investigation,” Rouen prosecutor Sebastien Gallois said, according to Agence France-Presse.

Cléon Mayor Melanie Delacour said the victims were “in a state of shock.”

“The windows of the carriages that remained upright shattered, and because of the train’s speed, stones flew into the carriages,” she told AFP.

Per police, the prosecutor’s office has remained cautious about drawing conclusions while the investigation is underway.

Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said 140 firefighters and other emergency teams were deployed to the scene of the crash on Friday.

One of the injured victims was an 18-year-old woman who was evacuated to Rouen University Hospital by helicopter in critical condition, police said.

“Suddenly there were a few jolts, and then after about three seconds it got stronger and stronger,” Louis, a train passenger, told ICI Normandie radio. “I couldn’t stay in my seat any more. The windows partially shattered, the stones from the track came into the carriage. It was really shocking. I’m still shaking.”

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Nord Stream bombing suspect arrested while working on film about attack

A Ukrainian man arrested in the Nord Stream bombing was detained while working on a Hollywood movie about the gas pipeline attack starring Adrien Brody and Sean Penn, a report said Thursday.

Police in Pula, Croatia on Wednesday arrested Volodymyr Zhuravlyov under a European arrest warrant put out by Germany, which is seeking his extradition.

German prosecutors say Zhuravlyov is a trained diver and accuse him of helping plant explosives on the Baltic Sea energy link between Russia and Germany that destroyed three of the four pipelines in 2022.

Germany’s Legal Tribune Online reported he was arrested while working on the set for the movie “Snake Island” by US director Doug Liman (“Bourne Identity”), with Brody and three-time Oscar winner Penn.

Zhuravlyov worked as an advisor for the film, according to media reports AFP was unable to immediately verify with German or Croatian authorities.

The Ukrainian suspect had previously been held in Poland for his alleged role in destroying the pipelines.

But authorities there refused to extradite him and let him go, judging that any such Ukrainian attack would have been a legitimate act of war rather than a crime.

The Baltic Sea sabotage attack came months after Moscow’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

German investigators believe the attack was ordered by a Ukrainian state agency with the aim of depriving Russia of future energy revenues to finance its war in Ukraine.

Prosecutors charge Zhuravlyov worked closely with Sergiy Kuznetsov, another Ukrainian man who was arrested in Italy last year before being extradited to Germany.

The case is politically awkward for Germany and Ukraine, as Berlin has strongly backed Kyiv in its fight against Russia.

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Ukraine Blamed in Germany for War Crimes in Pipeline Sabotage, Shamed in Poland for Honoring Nazi Collaborators and War Criminals, Suspected in Monaco of Horrific Bombing

Heroes and villains in the Russia-Ukraine war: a warped tale.

Of course, if you check any report by the MSM, you’ll read about what awful criminals the Russians are and how the valiant, democratic Ukrainians shield Europe from this danger.

But just in the few days, we have learned such an astonishing amount of damaging information regarding Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime that it borders on the unbelievable.

To start, German police have charged a Ukrainian veteran with war crimes in the explosion of the Nord Stream Pipeline, and prosecutors have openly told the press that the sabotage was undertaken after ‘state orders’ coming from Kiev.

As you can read in Ukrainian Man Charged in Germany With War Crime Explosions That Sabotaged Nord Stream Pipeline – Prosecutors Say He Acted on ‘State Orders’ by Kiev Regime.

That alone should give anyone pause. But there’s much more.

In Poland, officials have stripped Zelensky of a highly prestigious decoration over his government’s decision to honor WW2 war criminals (is there a theme here?) by renaming a current army unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), Nazi collaborators who massacred 100,000 Poles (among other atrocities) in World War Two.

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Ukrainian Man Charged in Germany With War Crime Explosions That Sabotaged Nord Stream Pipeline – Prosecutors Say He Acted on ‘State Orders’ by Kiev Regime

A war crime ordered by Kiev, German prosecutors say.

Back on September 26, 2022, explosions destroyed the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that transported cheap Russian oil to Germany.

Some of us still remember how the Fake News MSM tried hard to convince us that the Russians had blown their own pipeline – but that didn’t take.

Later, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh, based on his unnamed sources, wrote that the explosions were caused by the CIA.

But after a 4-year investigation, German police and prosecutors have arrived at the conclusion that a team of Ukrainians, ‘under state orders’, was guilty of the attacks.

Today, the leader of this team has been charged with what is essentially a war crime under international law: attacking civilian energy infrastructure. (Another source)

Serhii Kuznetzov, the head of the ‘Andromeda’ team, has also been charged with causing an explosion, destroying structures/infrastructure.

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