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Aerial view of a major pipeline installation and infrastructure project across the arid desert landscape outside Riyadh (credit: Leonid Andronov / Shutterstock.com)

SIGNIFICANT ACTIVITIES

Saudi Arabia Shuts Its Hormuz-Bypass Pipeline After Strike

Saudi Arabia shut down its East-West crude pipeline on Thursday after drone strikes on pumping stations injured several people. Riyadh blamed drones from Iraq but named no group. The line lets crude reach the Red Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.

The Houthis, meanwhile, completed their takeover of Yemen's Red Sea coast, taking Mocha and Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly asked Trump for help, who offered intelligence and targeting. (Read More)

Half a Million Russian Troops Killed in Ukraine, Britain Says

Roughly 500,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the Ukraine war. Britain's defense chief said Friday that the dead and wounded together approach 1.5 million since the 2022 invasion.

Most of those losses have come since January 2023, in what Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton called a senseless and futile loss of life for insignificant gains. Ukraine claimed almost 1,500 Russian casualties in the past day, though both sides' tallies are contested. (Read More)

Embrace Turbulence

SOFX contributor Dino Garner, a former Ranger and scientist, argues in a new essay that chasing calm is a mistake. Drawing on physics, he says smooth flow looks efficient but is fragile, failing the instant real pressure hits.

Turbulence is what actually holds up under stress, he writes, and special operators were selected to be that rough, resilient element, the ones who stay sharp when everyone else buckles. His advice: expect chaos and stop apologizing for it. (Read More)

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QUICK UPDATES

CONFLICT UPDATES

➤ The Israeli military packed a Hezbollah tunnel complex beneath southern Lebanon's Ali al-Taher ridge with more than 1,100 tons of explosives and detonated it Thursday night, setting off a 4.1-magnitude tremor that the U.S. Geological Survey recorded as an earthquake. (Read More)

➤ An Iran-linked group used Anthropic's Claude to build targeting files on U.S. Navy forces in the Middle East. The material drew entirely on open sources, from ship transponder data to names scraped from photo captions. Anthropic found no sign it reached operational targeting. (Read More)

➤ Iran's Revolutionary Guard claimed it struck a U.S. Saildrone surveillance vessel near the Strait of Hormuz. It released video of a burning craft it said was spying, but a U.S. official rejected the claim, saying all its Saildrones are accounted for and fully operational. (Read More)

SECURITY UPDATES

➤ Scammers are targeting hundreds of thousands of Trezor crypto customers after a breach at the wallet maker's email provider, Brevo, exposed their addresses. About 347,000 users received phishing emails inventing a hardware flaw to steal their wallet recovery phrases. (Read More)

➤ OpenAI is pitching electric utilities on using its AI to defend the power grid. The cyber-defense program, which it calls Daybreak, would cost about $1 billion, though critics note OpenAI's own agents recently ran a rogue exploit undetected for days. (Read More)

➤ An Ohio jury convicted a man of attempted murder for pulling a gun on his ex-wife at a Toledo restaurant. The gun failed to fire because its safety was on, and a waiter and other diners tackled him before he could shoot. (Read More)

TECHNOLOGY UPDATES

➤ U.S. Special Operations Command hired Sea Machines for drop-in boat autonomy kits under a five-year contract. The systems bolt onto existing craft and convert them to uncrewed operation within hours, for expeditionary logistics, surveillance and maritime security missions. (Read More)

➤ L3Harris built the first production pod version of its Viper Shield jammer for the F-16. The system detects and counters enemy radar and missiles, and eight allied nations have ordered 233 units, worth about $1 billion in development. (Read More)

➤ Hermeus unveiled Ramjet-X, an expendable test vehicle for high-speed flight experiments, air-launched from its Quarterhorse drone at about Mach 3 and built to accelerate past Mach 4 at 100,000 feet. Integrated flight tests are planned for 2027. (Read More)

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SPECIAL CATEGORY

➤ A drone light show recreated the Twin Towers over New York Harbor for the 25th anniversary of 9/11, flying exactly 2,977 drones, one for each person killed. The Sky Elements display, "2,977 Lights," appeared alongside the annual Tribute in Light.

➤ Federal health officials declared the largest cyclospora outbreak on record over. The parasite, spread through tainted iceberg lettuce, sickened more than 17,000 people across 20 states and killed two since June, though investigators still cannot explain why it grew so large.

➤ Foragers on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi were chewing mind-altering betel nuts up to 25,000 years ago, according to Griffith University researchers who studied worn teeth and chemical traces. It is the oldest known evidence of humans using a psychoactive plant.

On this day in history: On September 12th, 1943, German glider-borne commandos landed atop Italy's Gran Sasso massif and freed Benito Mussolini from a mountaintop prison.

SENTIMENT COLLECTION

Do you think Governments can really regulate AI?

Yes

Unsure

Yesterday’s Results:

Should NATO treat the severing of undersea cables as an armed attack under Article 5?

Yes (85.1%)
No (10.2%)
Unsure (4.7%)

n=707

Have your own question that you'd like polled? Email us at editor@sofx.com.

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About SOFX: We are an independent media and communications technology company reporting on the conflicts, security, and technology issues impacting your lives and businesses. SOFX was founded by former special operations & intelligence professionals, not career journalists or Big Tech / Big Media.

Have feedback for us? We want to hear any and all comments you may have. Contact us at editor@sofx.com.

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