No Use Complaining

Bullet Points:

** (transnational crime) When I was in the game, the Africans (mostly negroes) in Africa were scared to death of the Mexican drug cartel types, which I found interesting. The Mexicans were quicker to shoot and shot more accurately, as they related. The meth business is alive and well.  VM note – the Mexicans were not particularly accurate; they were MORE accurate than the Africans, who were in spray-and-pray mode. (h/t Claudio)

** A friendly discussion of who should be in charge.

** Right h/t WSF.

** (h/t Claudio) The Richard Montgomery ran aground on a sandbank in August 1944 while carrying thousands of tons of ammunition for Allied forces in Europe. Salvage crews removed roughly half of the cargo before the hull flooded and broke apart, forcing the operation to be abandoned. About 1,400 tons of explosives remain inside the forward holds today, according to the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency. GOV.UK

** It’s about time that the US targeted Iranian rail yards, railroad bridges and other chokepoints. If the rails are cut in meaningful places that are difficult to repair, the rolling stock is worthless. Locomotives are typically fun for pilots to target. The most significant targets for the transportation sector are the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Railway Company, or RAI, along with Raja Passenger Trains Company and freight operator Sherkat-E Rah Ahan-E Khamle-O-Naghle.

** The top three.

** Jules e-mailed me and said that the Muslim take-overs of part of Texas and those at home in Old Blighty reminded her of a silent invasion. I reminded her that I left my very nice upper-middle-class home in Southern California and built the White Wolf Mine in part because a mosque was built down the street and thereafter EVERY home was purchased by a Muslim. I established detente with my Muslim neighbors, about 50% of whom were jihadis, but I decided that was no way to live. Thus, the Arizona mountains.

How Poetic?

h/t Frank – Romance isn’t what it used to be…

Then again, both Barrys – O’Bama and Manilow shared the same love interest as Patroclus.

Submissive!

Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York senator, wore a hijab beside a cleric who praised Hamas.
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Photos from September 21, 2026 show her at the Bronx Muslim Center in Little Yemen. She posted her other Bronx and East Harlem stops that day, in the same suit, and left the mosque visit off her accounts. How convenient. The center’s outreach director, Yahay Obeid, posted the pictures. A banner in them asks for donations toward a 32,000-square-foot building. Kirsten Gillibrand chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. She sat next to Hamud Alsilwi, a Yemeni cleric who has led that center since 1998.
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In January 2016, Alsilwi praised Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin for “causing so much trouble for the Jews in Palestine.” In October 2016, he wrote that the Muslim Brotherhood “harmed no one except the Jews and Israel.” In April 2024 he mourned Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zindani as an “eminent scholar” and prayed, “O God, grant him spacious gardens in Paradise.” The United States designated al-Zindani a terr*rist in 2004 as bin Laden’s spiritual adviser.
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The Bronx center is a branch of the Muslim American Society. Federal prosecutors have called that society an “overt arm” of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States. Her office and the center did not answer requests for comment. Pew Research put the United States Muslim population at 2,400,000 in 2007 and 5,500,000 in 2026. Mosque counts in that same chart went from 1,200 in 2000 to 2,800 in 2020. Alsilwi’s line was, “causing so much trouble for the Jews in Palestine.” Then again, the Jews certainly flattened Gaza, didn’t they? They’ll be picking unexploded ordnance out of the rubble for the next twenty years. Will a different class of people repopulate the place?

Asaib Ahl al Haq

(h/t ISW) An Iraqi official told the Washington Post that Asaib Ahl al Haq transferred only half of its weapons arsenal to the Iraqi state and that a group of defectors used the remainder to form a new militia. Some Asaib Ahl al Haq members’ decision to form a new militia rather than disarm aligns with the disarmament-related internal fissures ISW-CTP has previously identified within the group.

Several indicators suggest the Asaib Ahl al Haq splinter militia is currently responding to IRGC commands. The new militia has coordinated operations with the Houthis and participated in recent attacks on Saudi Arabia’s energy sector, according to the Washington Post. Iraqi militias and the Houthis have increased cooperation in recent months, including through Houthi attacks targeting Saudi Arabia from Iraqi territory.

These ”newly-formed” militias are reportedly conducting attacks on Saudi Arabia, which is consistent with the Washington Post’s reporting about the Asaib Ahl al Haq splinter group’s recent attacks. However, the defectors may be unwilling to consistently follow IRGC orders. Asaib Ahl al Haq formed as a splinter from Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army and has occasionally displayed a willingness to disregard Iranian directives, such as when the militia attempted to assassinate the Iraqi prime minister in 2021.

Our fellow blogger, HogsbreathSS, may have some local knowledge on these developments since he is spending time in the area these days.

The US Defense Department and Iraqi officials said the United States and Iraq will now prioritize bilateral security and intelligence cooperation following the withdrawal of coalition forces. Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have long used the US presence in Iraq to justify their armament and will likely cite other pretexts now that US forces have withdrawn. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which is an Iraqi militia coalition that includes the militias most active kinetically and historically closest to Iran, reiterated on September 30 its refusal to disarm. Since their weapons are their only leverage, this makes perfect sense.

September 30 marks the original date that Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al Zaydi previously declared to be the deadline for the federal government to disarm the militias. Zaydi announced a new deadline for militia disarmament in June 2027, almost certainly because the government has made little progress.

Iran seeks sanctions relief, the release of frozen assets, an end to the naval blockade, and recognition of its role in managing the Strait before substantive nuclear talks could take place. It would be good if the US could take steps to significantly further degrade Iranian infrastructure, such as removing rail transportation capability, cratering every single runway in the country, and eliminating all heavy industry before discussing anything further. The United States should provide no economic relief as long as the IRGC is doing the negotiating. Will the hardliners in Iran simply move to enclaves in Iraq? What about the Kurds?

In Arizona

The Attorney General’s investigators seized cash, gold bars, multiple aircraft, luxury items, and more from Yuma doctor Irfan Fazil after he was caught defrauding the Medicaid program of $36.5 million. He’ll spend the next 7.5 years in prison and will purportedly pay back every dollar he stole from taxpayers. The criminal doctor graduated from Army Medical College (Quaid-e-Azam University, Pakistan) and completed his residency and fellowship at State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Health Sciences / Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn.

Dr. Fazil was arrested following an investigation by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the state’s Medicaid program, AHCCCS. Investigators discovered that his businesses billed the state for tens of thousands of entirely fabricated medical and radiology procedures. In one extreme instance, a single patient was billed for more than 1,700 X-rays in a six-month window—a frequency prosecutors noted was physically impossible and would have caused lethal radiation exposure if actually performed.

Russian Rehearsal

(h/t Claudio) Center-2026 Russian war games involved more than 47,000 personnel. Around 6,000 were at Chebarkul for the final phase, with roughly 700 pieces of equipment, more than 600 UAVs, and over 60 robotic systems. Was it a confidence-building show of force, kabuki theater, or a genuine training evolution? Heavy on the first two and light on the last?
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The force design is the interesting part: small assault elements on motorcycles; FPV swarms and artillery supporting the advance; unmanned ground systems moving ammunition, breaching obstacles, and providing direct fire support; armor used as fire support under counter-UAS cover; and electronic warfare built into the scenario.

Geran-4 and Geran-5 jet-powered strike drones were also displayed. The Geran-4 has been documented with an electro-optical terminal seeker that can continue terminal target acquisition if the communications link is lost during the final dive. That reduces dependence on radio control. It does not make the drone “unjammable”. This remains an exercise, not combat evidence, and much of the performance detail comes from Russian official reporting. It shows what Russia wants its formations and foreign participants to rehearse, not what they can necessarily execute under fire.

Russia faces the Rasputitsa now, and the battlefield will be a sea of deep mud where maneuver is nearly impossible until it dries out next summer and the war drags on. They’re hoping that Ukraine will surrender this winter and that they can starve or freeze the Ukrainians out. Looking at the past, that outcome seems unlikely. However, if Putin stops the war, the Russians will disappear, Putin. He has a tiger by the tail. He doesn’t want to hold on anymore and dares not let go.

Independent Western tracking and intelligence assessments compiled by Russia Matters estimate total Russian military casualties (killed and wounded) at 1,000,000, and that most of its best equipment is gone. Ukrainian military casualties (killed and wounded) are estimated by Western officials to be between 250,000 and 300,000. Independent open-source registries like UA Losses have individually documented and named over 103,400 confirmed deaths and roughly 97,900 personnel missing in action.

Identify the Equipment on the Ukraine-Russia Front

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