Security

Under the hard sun of the Kenyan bush, U.S. Marine Raiders and Kenyan Marine Commandos moved through a series of realistic training scenarios designed to sharpen combat skills and tighten coordination between the two forces. The Joint Combined Exchange Training program, held Jan. 23 through Feb. 5, 2026, pushed through …

by Susan Katz Keating Graphic combat imagery circulating through exile networks raised a darker possibility. The money may have mattered less than identifying who would give it – and who would not. “What do you make of these, Jocko?” I slid the packet across the table as he set down …

by A.R. Fomenko VIENNA BUREAU – A massive wildfire inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is reviving scrutiny of the radioactive timber trade, wartime disruption, and the shadow economy investigators say has operated inside the contaminated forest for decades. Flames vaulted across the tree tops, carried by wind gusts that whipped through …

by Susan Katz Keating The investigation into Fancy Bear and Boston’s hidden seams continued with a meeting, a sealed envelope, and an old warning from Northern Ireland. It’s not a bomb. It can’t be a bomb. I stood by the window, watching the envelope from across the room. It lay …

by Susan Katz Keating It wasn’t the bombs that kept bringing me back. It was the warnings. “It’s an old story,” I said. “It’s not.” He wasn’t arguing. He was correcting. “The Boston office is working it,” he said, leaning forward. “I’m telling you.” We had been talking for 20 …

A fixer who says he connects buyers and sellers moving goods out of Chernobyl describes a trade that has slowed but grown more profitable, building on decades of documented smuggling from the contaminated Exclusion Zone. by A.R. Fomenko VIENNA BUREAU – The truck rolled to a stop at the border, crossing …

Prosecutors say a former DEA financial operations chief used his expertise in a rogue effort for personal gain, agreeing in a federal sting to assist what he believed was a cartel. This installment of Crossings in Wartime examines what happens when the people who know how the machine works decide to run …

by Jose Campos It started under cover of darkness. In the early hours of an August morning in 1980, three men in white jumpsuits rolled a steel box into Harvey’s Resort Hotel and Casino in Stateline, Nevada. They told casino staff it was an IBM copy machine. It wasn’t. Inside …

Smuggling networks led by fixers like Oleg move men through checkpoints, vehicles, and terrain, turning border enforcement into a market for escape. by A.R. Fomenko VIENNA BUREAU – Oleg did not ask many questions when the calls came in. He listened, noted what mattered, and moved on to the next name …

by Susan Katz Keating The No Kings protests advocate for people who live on the margins. We found the ones they pushed aside. The bomb went off on a Saturday afternoon in a town center full of shoppers. Omagh. August 1998. Twenty-nine people and two unborn children who had nothing …