Today in the News Briefs: From the Kaizen Files: A man with a work permit, Social Security number and regular ICE check-ins suddenly finds himself in Guantánamo. Adam Abdullah says that to this day, nobody has explained to him why he was arrested in the first place. In Miami, he was still being told Cuba was just a refueling stop.
Also: Explosive devices at German high-voltage power lines, Iran keeps expanding its proxies in the Gulf, Laura Loomer tells Republicans in Dallas that they can barely win without Trump. And Canada is putting its retaliatory tariffs exactly where they hurt Trump's party - in Ohio, Maine and Kansas.
Iran Builds New Front Against U.S. Allies in the Gulf - Houthis and Iraqi Militias Working More Closely Together
Iran is reshuffling its allies in the Middle East. After Hamas and especially Hezbollah suffered heavy losses in recent wars, the Houthis in Yemen and pro-Iranian militias in Iraq are now playing a much bigger role. Just how far that cooperation has gone became clear in the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities in July. Two Saudi officials and a senior Iraqi security official say Houthi representatives sat in an operations room together with Iraqi militias and helped plan and carry out the two-day attack. Saudi Arabia and the United States responded at the time with joint airstrikes in Iraq. At least 20 Iraqi fighters, six Iranian advisers and at least one Houthi representative were killed.
Since the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began in late February, that cooperation has become even more important. Tehran is trying to put pressure on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that host American troops or work closely with Washington. The Houthis are no longer just attacking ships in the Red Sea. Since late July, more than a dozen attacks on Saudi oil facilities and tankers have been recorded. On Tuesday, a new wave of attacks hit targets in southern Saudi Arabia and injured more than 70 people, including women and children. A week earlier, the Houthis had announced a blockade against Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. That means the very transport routes Riyadh has increasingly shifted its oil to are now coming under attack, since the Strait of Hormuz has become barely reliable because of the war.
Saudi Arabia is now trying to move a growing share of its exports through the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and Egypt's SUMED pipeline. The amount transported there rose from around 650,000 barrels a day in June to more than 1.9 million in August. But that route is not safe either. Just last month, a Houthi missile hit a Saudi tanker in the northern Red Sea, around 1,000 kilometers from Houthi-controlled territory. At the same time, Saudi-backed forces in Yemen are once again fighting the Houthis along several fronts. The ceasefire that had largely held since 2022 has practically collapsed. The war in Yemen, which according to United Nations estimates has already killed at least 150,000 people, is now threatening to break out in full again.
For Iran, though, this approach is dangerous. In Iraq, the government has ordered armed groups to give up their weapons by the end of September, but several powerful pro-Iranian militias are refusing. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, could respond to the latest attacks with a larger military strike. The Houthis have cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones and unmanned underwater vehicles and have repeatedly brought advanced weapons into the country over the years. Iran denies arming the group, but Iranian-made weapons have been found on battlefields and in intercepted shipments. What Tehran wants to achieve with its allies is now clear: The war against Iran is supposed to become more expensive for Washington and its partners in the Gulf. The price could be a new major war in Yemen and an even greater threat to some of the world's most important oil routes.
Sabotage Against the Power Grid: Parts of Germany Could Go Dark for Days
Germany is pretty well protected against a single failure in the power grid. Against several targeted attacks at the same time, things look different. Martin Braun, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy System Technology and a professor at the University of Kassel, warns that major and prolonged power outages could hit individual regions if important parts of the infrastructure are deliberately destroyed. A nationwide blackout would be much harder to cause because the German and European grid has reserves, alternative transmission routes and automatic protection systems. But that is hardly a reassuring guarantee. What matters is not some number of megawatts or substations, but what gets hit, how much damage happens at the same time and whether grid operators can still contain the failure.
The past few days show how serious this has become. On September 1, high-voltage lines near Turnow-Preilack in Brandenburg were attacked, close to the Jänschwalde power plant. Two short circuits temporarily knocked one power plant unit offline. The same day, a substation in Bergheim in North Rhine-Westphalia was hit, taking five generating units offline. In Saxony, investigators found twelve homemade explosive devices on September 4 near high-voltage lines at the Bärwalde and Graustein substations. Three days later, nine more were found. Altogether, 21 devices were discovered there that investigators believe were intended to cause short circuits and damage power lines. The lights stayed on only because they were found in time.
On September 8, police finally arrested a 48-year-old man near the Weisweiler power plant. He allegedly had explosive devices on him, and additional charges were found in a nearby tent. In letters claiming responsibility, the author said the attacks were a protest against the use of fossil fuels. Investigators are still trying to determine whether and how the individual incidents are connected. Berlin already saw at the beginning of January what a successful attack can do. An arson attack on cables near the Lichterfelde power plant cut power on January 3 to 45,400 households and 2,200 commercial customers, and district heating was also affected. It took four days before electricity was fully restored everywhere. Braun is therefore warning about more than the attacks themselves. Spare parts, repair crews, secure communications and regularly practiced recovery procedures determine whether hours turn into days. Anyone who hits several important points at the same time does not have to shut down all of Germany to cause enormous damage.
Laura Loomer Threatens Republicans in Dallas: Without Trump, You Can't Make It Across the Finish Line
Laura Loomer had a pretty clear message at the Republican convention in Dallas for all those fellow Republicans who preferred to stay home: You'd better be grateful. The right-wing Trump ally went especially hard at Republicans in tough races who still did not show up at the convention. “If you're not going to show up to support the president so he can carry your sorry ass across the finish line due to a lack of enthusiasm, you better hope that the voters feel enthusiastic about showing up to vote for you,” Loomer said. It is hard to say much more clearly what she thinks of a Republican who believes he can win without Trump.
Read also our article: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/die-hexenmeisterin-aus-westchester-laura-loomers-aufstieg-zu-einer-der-gefaehrlichsten-frauen-amerikas
Loomer made no attempt to downplay the party's dependence on the president. Trump was not coming to Dallas for himself, after all. He had won his election, and he could not run for president again. He was coming to help Republicans, she said. And that was exactly why they should be grateful to him. Her reasoning was not exactly flattering to her own party: Republicans, she said, were simply incapable of successfully dragging themselves across the finish line without Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. For a party that likes to sell itself as a major political movement, that is a remarkably open description of its own weakness.
Loomer's warning was not aimed only at candidates in the midterm elections. Those already looking ahead to 2028 should also be careful not to alienate Trump's supporters. That leaves something pretty openly on display at the convention that many Republicans prefer to phrase a little more politely: Even if Trump himself can no longer run, his following is still supposed to decide who has a future inside the party. Anyone who moves away from him risks not only his anger, but possibly losing their own voters along with it. Loomer just says it more crudely than most - and that is exactly why you can hear especially clearly from her just how tightly the party has tied its own future to one man.
From the Kaizen Files: From a Work Permit to Guantánamo: ICE Still Hasn't Told Adam Abdullah Why It Arrested Him
Adam Abdullah had a work permit, a Social Security number and regularly checked in with ICE. Today, the 31-year-old Somali man is sitting in Guantánamo Bay. In between lies a trip through America's deportation system in which apparently nobody wanted to explain to him why he had been arrested in the first place. Abdullah came to the United States in 2023 and applied for asylum. Last December, federal agents stopped his car in St. Paul in the middle of “Operation Metro Surge.” He asked why they had stopped him and whether they had a warrant. The answer, as he tells it, was remarkably short: They did not need one, they were immigration officers and they knew he was Adam Abdullah.
Then came detention facilities in Minnesota, Kentucky and Louisiana. Eventually, he was told he would be deported to Somalia through Miami. In Miami, they told him Cuba was only a refueling stop on the way to Africa. The refueling stop turned into Guantánamo. Abdullah says his hands and feet were shackled throughout the flights. He has now been sitting in Camp Six for about two weeks. Seven other Somalis are there, he says, several of them also arrested in the Twin Cities. Calls with his lawyer last only five to ten minutes. Even the lawyer himself does not know whether those calls are confidential at all.
Donald Trump had already ordered migrants to be sent to Guantánamo last year. During the campaign, he talked about as many as 30,000 people. In May, reports said only six migrants from Haiti were being held there, but Abdullah is now reporting additional detainees from other countries. A hearing is finally scheduled for October. The Department of Homeland Security said a recent flight to Cuba carried some of the “worst of the worst” and “criminal illegal aliens.” Adam Abdullah tells a different story: work permit, Social Security number, regular ICE appointments - and still Guantánamo. According to him, nobody has even told him why he was arrested in the first place. You really do not need to know much more about the distance between the political slogan and the human being who ends up disappearing inside it.
Canada Is Putting Its Tariffs Exactly Where Republicans Are Sweating Over Their Seats
Donald Trump wanted to put pressure on Canada with tariffs. Canada is now sending the bill right back to the places where it can hurt Republicans most just weeks before the midterm elections. Ohio is one of them. Canada is the state's largest export market and most recently bought $17.5 billion worth of American goods, especially cars and machinery. Those are exactly the kinds of products being hit by the Canadian measures. At the same time, Republican Jon Husted is locked in a tight race against former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. Husted initially defended Trump's tariffs. Now he sounds more cautious. It depends on how the whole thing ends, he says, and whether both countries get a good deal.
In Maine, it gets even more immediate. Canada has slapped a 50 percent tariff on timber and agricultural products, both important to the border state. Republican Senator Susan Collins is facing Democrat Troy Jackson there. Collins now criticizes the trade war herself, but Jackson reminds her that her party helped make it possible in the first place. His math is simple: The retaliatory tariffs drive up costs for people in Maine, and Trump is not sitting somewhere outside this story. He started it.
Kansas is almost even more uncomfortable for Republicans. On Labor Day, Trump threatened to shut Canadian aircraft maker Bombardier out of the U.S. market. The problem is that its U.S. headquarters happen to be in Kansas. More than 1,000 jobs there depend directly on the company, while other figures put the number at around 1,500 families. Senator Roger Marshall is suddenly promising to defend those jobs and says he has already taken the issue into the Oval Office. He would rather leave out the name of the man who created the problem. That is what the trade war looks like now: Trump hits Canada, Canada hits back, and Republican candidates have to explain to their own voters why American jobs and American exports are suddenly caught in the middle. With Trump's approval at 38 percent, that is not exactly a pleasant story to have to tell on the campaign trail.
