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U.S. service members move through a residential compound during predawn raids with Ecuadorian police against a network tied to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Sept. 24, 2026. (Photo: Ecuador's Interior Minister John Reimberg)

SIGNIFICANT ACTIVITIES

U.S. Commandos Join Ecuador Police Raids on Criminal Network Tied to Jalisco Cartel

About 50 U.S. Southern Command personnel and DEA agents joined more than 320 Ecuadorian police in predawn raids across southwestern Ecuador on Thursday, arresting 36 people, including the alleged leader and financier of a cocaine network tied to Mexico's Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Interior Minister John Reimberg called it the first time Southern Command forces took direct part in raids inside Ecuador. Footage shows U.S. troops entering a suspect's home alongside Ecuadorian police. (Read More)

U.S. Lines Up Military Police, Medics for Possible Cuba Action, CBS Reports

The Army Reserve asked commands whether military police, medical, engineering and logistics units could be ready for Southern Command within 90 to 120 days. U.S. officials told CBS News the planning is aimed at Cuba.

The internal message does not name Cuba, and officials said no decision has been made. The request follows President Trump's Sept. 22 prediction at the U.N. that Cuba's government "will fall." (Read More)

Phone-Cracking Firm Used by Secret Service Accused of Hiding Russian Owners

Federal prosecutors charged Oxygen Forensics CEO Lee Reiber and Russian co-founder Oleg Davydov with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, alleging they hid the company's Russian ownership to keep selling phone-extraction software to the Secret Service and the Pentagon.

Prosecutors say a Moscow firm with the same Russian owners wrote the code and sold versions to the FSB. Reiber was arrested in Idaho and Davydov at London's Heathrow Airport. (Read More)

QUICK UPDATES

CONFLICT UPDATES

➤ France will send troops, radar and air-defense systems to protect Saudi Arabia's Red Sea oil hub at Yanbu from Houthi attacks, President Emmanuel Macron said, adding the goal is "not to get us involved in any conflicts." (Read More)

➤ Israel said it killed a Hamas commander who had held seven Israeli hostages in a Gaza City tunnel. The military identified him as Mahmoud Abd al-Fattah Awad and said he was rebuilding Hamas forces in violation of the ceasefire, which has largely held despite continued strikes. (Read More)

➤ Journalists have now identified nearly 259,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine by name. The BBC's Russian service and the outlet Mediazona built the tally from obituaries, public records and recent prisoner-body exchanges, and estimate it captures only about half to two-thirds of the true toll. (Read More)

SECURITY UPDATES

➤ Microsoft's AI chief called it a mistake to build AI that acts as if it might be conscious, taking aim at rival Anthropic. Mustafa Suleyman argued in an essay that AI does not feel or suffer, and treating it otherwise could make it harder to control. (Read More)

➤ NASA's chief says the US got lucky when China delayed its first robotic landing at the Moon's south pole. Administrator Jared Isaacman warned that whoever reaches the pole first could fence off the best sites near the ice, and pressed the US to move faster. (Read More)

➤ Hackers drained about $351 million from the crypto exchange Bitget, the largest such theft this year, and the company blamed suspected North Korean operators based on the attack's patterns. TRM Labs attributes about three-quarters of this year's crypto thefts to North Korea. (Read More)

TECHNOLOGY UPDATES

➤ One of NASA's SR-71 Blackbirds has been gone from its outdoor display since May, moved into a hangar for inspection. The disappearance drew notice after NASA chief Jared Isaacman showed a Blackbird-like silhouette while pledging to rebuild the agency's X-plane fleet. (Read More)

➤ A camera on the cockpit canopy captured the moment an Air Force Thunderbirds pilot ejected from a failing F-16, an accident investigators traced to a misaligned vane deep in the engine. The pilot survived the December crash in the California desert. (Read More)

➤ Google will launch a test satellite carrying its AI chips into orbit on October 1. The prototype, part of a project called Suncatcher, tests whether Google's chips can survive and run on constant solar power in orbit, a step toward data centers in space. (Read More)

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SPECIAL CATEGORY

➤ University of British Columbia researchers found a new sea spider in the Salish Sea off British Columbia that is a parasite carrying parasites of its own. Its grooming legs are too small to scrape the single-celled hitchhikers off, so Tanystylum kiixin stays infested.

➤ Dogs pick out words by tracking consonants more than vowels, the same trick humans use and once thought unique to people, a study in Science found. Hungarian researchers measured the brain activity of 20 pet dogs as they listened to invented words.

➤ A security researcher used Flock Safety's own exposed data to map roughly 300,000 of its devices, including 170,000 cameras, well above the 120,000-plus Flock advertises. Flock responded with a trademark complaint to get the map taken down.

On this day in history: On September 26th, 1983, Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov judged a satellite alert of five inbound US missiles to be a false alarm rather than report it up the chain. He was right, and his restraint may have helped avert nuclear war.

SENTIMENT COLLECTION

Will humans set foot on Mars in your lifetime?

Yes

Unsure

Yesterday's Results:

Do you think Russia will attack a NATO country within the next year?

Yes (49.8%)
No (43.2%)
Unsure (7.1%)

n=695

Have your own question you would like polled? Send it to us at editor@news.sofx.com or reply directly to this email.

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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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