Tumbling Price.

Coked up in the 17th century.

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1. Seal Team 6, the clandestine US Navy commando unit that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, has been training for missions to help Taiwan if it is invaded by China, according to people familiar with the preparations. The elite Navy special forces team, which is tasked with some of the military’s most sensitive and difficult missions, has been planning and training for a Taiwan conflict for more than a year at Dam Neck, its headquarters at Virginia Beach about 250 km southeast of Washington. The secret training underlines the increased US focus on deterring China from attacking Taiwan, while stepping up preparations for such an event. The preparations have only grown since Phil Davidson, the US Indo-Pacific commander at the time, warned in 2021 that China could attack Taiwan within six years. (Sources: groveatlantic.com, ft.com)

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2. The U.S. and Chinese militaries are taking tentative steps to re-engage diplomatically after a two-year freeze in relations, seeking to dial back the risk of confrontation while tensions simmer over Beijing’s activities in the South China Sea and its support of Russia. Jump-starting talks between military leaders has been a priority of the Biden administration, but one that has previously faced stiff resistance in Beijing. In the past few weeks, U.S. officials have netted long-sought meetings with senior Chinese military officials including Gen. Wu Yanan, whose command includes operations in the South China Sea. Wu is also expected to participate in a military conference in Hawaii this month, a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday. (Source: wsj.com)

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3. The U.S. is gradually moving aircraft and commandos into coastal West Africa in an urgent effort to try to stop the march of al Qaeda and Islamic State militants across one of the world’s most volatile regions. American forces were evicted this summer from their regional stronghold in Niger, farther inland, and now the Pentagon is patching together a backup counterinsurgency plan in neighboring countries—refurbishing an airfield in Benin to accommodate American helicopters, stationing Green Berets and surveillance planes in Ivory Coast, and negotiating the return of U.S. commandos to a base they used to occupy in Chad. “Losing Niger means that we’ve lost our ability to directly influence counterterrorism and counterinsurgency in the Sahel,” said retired Maj. Gen. Mark Hicks, former commander of U.S. special-operations forces in Africa, referring to the vast, semidesert band just south of the Sahara. Islamist militants are wreaking havoc across the core of the Sahel—Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger—attacking police and military, stirring local grievances, imposing their harsh version of Islam in occupied villages and causing some 38,000 deaths since 2017, according to the Pentagon’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies. (Source: wsj.com)

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4. An Islamist party that made opposition to the Israeli invasion of Gaza the centerpiece of its campaign scored a significant success in elections in Jordan, results released in the kingdom on Wednesday showed, giving the Muslim Brotherhood a bigger foothold in Jordan’s Parliament. The Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned in several countries in the Arab world, will now control a sizable bloc in Parliament, according to results announced by the electoral commission. It won 31 of the 138 seats. But the government will likely retain a substantial majority, given that two parties allied to it secured around 70 seats combined. (Source: nytimes.com)

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5. Founded in a Venezuelan prison where it ran a zoo, swimming pool, disco, restaurant and bar, the Tren de Aragua has grown into a fearsome transnational criminal force in less than a decade—“MS-13 on steroids,” as one federal official put it, referring to the Central American gang that is entrenched in many U.S. communities. The specter of crime caused by immigrants has become a major theme in the presidential campaign, with former President Donald Trump calling out “migrant crime” repeatedly. Federal crime data show homicides and other crimes have dropped—and that the U.S. is far safer than it used to be. The gang isn’t a household name, but its activities are a source of fascination on social media. “I think the Tren de Aragua in the U.S. could help elect Trump,” said Michael Shifter, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. (Source: wsj.com)

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