by Austin Lee Imagine a battlefield where the sharpest weapons are not forged in steel, but whispered in incantations and wit, where shadows cast by candlelit rituals eclipse the glare of spotlights, and the line between spy and sorcerer dissolves into the shadows. What if the most guarded state secrets …
Read More »Guarding the ‘Floating Bomb’ While Somali Pirates Prowled the Seas
by Martin Kufus Somali piracy already was waning in 2012 when I arrived on the Indian Ocean as a member of a four-man rifle team guarding a client’s cargo ship against hijack. It was my first time aboard an ocean-going vessel. This one was an Asian-flagged liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) …
Read More »Project Acoustic Kitty: The CIA’s Cold War Feline Secret Agent
by Austin Lee Project Acoustic Kitty was a real CIA initiative in the 1960s during the Cold War, aimed at using cats as covert listening devices to spy on Soviet officials. The plan involved surgically implanting a microphone in a cat’s ear canal, a small radio transmitter at the base …
Read More »Project Azorian: The CIA’s Audacious Grab for a Sunken Soviet Sub
by Austin Lee It was one of the ballsiest clandestine ops in history: Project Azorian, the CIA mission to snatch a Soviet submarine from the Pacific Ocean’s crushing depths. The haul from the Golf-II-class K-129 was a priceless score for the Americans. The mission also prompted a rare act of …
Read More »Undersea Sabotage: The Hidden War Beneath the Waves
by Jose Campos Explosions ripped through the Baltic Sea in 2022, far from any battlefield, silencing pipelines that carried Russian gas to Germany. Beneath the waves, vital arteries of energy and communication had been transformed into weapons. A Ukrainian man, identified only as Serhii K., is suspected of orchestrating the …
Read More »El Salvador’s Tattoo Dragnet Flipped the Script in War on Gangs
by Royce de Melo Some meters ahead of me on the left side of the street, two soldiers armed with M16 A1/A2 rifles approach a young man. He definitely caught their attention. As the soldiers in El Salvador calmly walk up to him, the man stops and puts down the …
Read More »Gloves Up, Guns Down: The Cartel Truces of Boxing Night
by Heath Hansen Murders, kidnappings, shootings, and drug trafficking should slow down during the fight. The big fight between Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez and Terence “Bud” Crawford drew tremendous interest among the fans, up until the moment Crawford emerged the victor. This clash and others like it also have had a …
Read More »Russia’s Field-Expedient Bomb Disposal: 44th Army Corps in Action
by A.R. Fomenko VIENNA BUREAU — The men move slowly in single file, scanning the forest floor. They are in Karelia, near Russia’s border with Finland. In footage from one recent patrol, the team encounters a bomb. Like their American and British counterparts, they neutralize the bomb by blowing it up. …
Read More »Wrong Turn, Right Tactics: Surviving a Riot From Behind the Wheel
by Greg Chabot You didn’t plan to be there. Most people don’t. But one wrong turn, one blocked exit, or one unexpected surge — and suddenly, you’re in your car in the middle of a riot. Don’t panic. As riot season heats up, here’s what to do if you find …
Read More »Howitzer Thunder: Marines Bring the Fire at Twentynine Palms
by Jose Campos TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. — The desert air trembled as Marines unleashed the first rounds from a M777 Howitzer during Service Level Training Exercise this month. Dust plumes curled in the heat, smoke trailing each shell as it streaked toward a distant target. The SLTE is more than …
Read More »
Soldier of Fortune Magazine The Journal of Professional Adventurers

