The Wire - March 10, 2025

//The Wire//1900Z March 10, 2025//
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//BLUF: CHAOS CONTINUES IN SYRIA. MAJOR SHIP COLLISION IN NORTH SEA.//

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-International Events-

North Sea: Early this morning a serious vessel collision was reported between two large cargo vessels. The M/V STENA IMMACULATE was lying at anchor when she was struck by the M/V SOLONG this morning. The collision resulted in a large and uncontrolled fire, which caused the crews of both vessels to abandon ship. Various Coast Guard forces carried out large-scale rescue operations throughout the day, recovering approximately 32x mariners from their liferafts by this afternoon.

AC: At the moment, the status of the recovered crew members is unknown. It also isn't clear as to if either vessel is sinking, due to the fires preventing an assessment of watertight integrity. The STENA IMMACULATE is a US-flagged tanker vessel that was in these waters reportedly to resupply a US Navy vessel with aviation fuel. Per AIS ship tracking data, the SOLONG was very likely at fault, directly colliding with the STENA's port side directly amidships, without deviating from course or attempting to slow down. Consequently, this incident will very likely be subject to a thorough investigation to determine if this collision was intentional.

Syria: The violence of the past few days has greatly expanded, and now encompasses many different factions. Most of the fighting has been reported in the northwestern regions of Syria, from Latakia to Baniyas.

-HomeFront-

USA: This morning Twitter/X suffered a large scale outage. Elon Musk stated that the reason for the outage was related to a large-scale cyberattack.

Washington: Attacks on Tesla vehicle dealerships continue with assailants conducting an arson attack in Seattle. Overnight, several Tesla vehicles were set on fire in a storage lot on the corner of 2nd Ave and Spokane Street.

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Analyst Comments: At the moment it is too soon to tell if a civil war has begun in Syria, however the violence over the past week has been exceptionally disturbing. What originally began as retaliatory massacres of former members of the Assad regime, has transitioned into what most would consider to be ethnic cleansing operations. Christians have been a primary target for many groups, which have formed killing squads specifically with the goal of targeting Christian communities. Other (comparatively moderate) Muslim factions have also been targeted, with the Alawite ethnic group continually suffering massacres as well.

Tragically, Syria is not unfamiliar with this development, as the long and weary Syrian Civil War of recent memory resulted in similar levels of factional violence. However, in this case, there is no somewhat stable regime to exert some sort of control over some parts of the nation. In short, those who thought Assad was a madman have not met Mohammad al-Julani, Syria's new leader who climbed to notoriety not via family aristocracy...but by hopping from militant group to militant group (and gaining warlord status along the way).

Analyst: S2A1
Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground
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