The Wire - June 12, 2025

//The Wire//2200Z June 12, 2025//
//ROUTINE//
//BLUF: COMMERCIAL AIRLINER CRASHES IN INDIA, 260 FATALITIES CONFIRMED SO FAR. TENSIONS CONTINUE IN MIDDLE EAST. RIOTS CONTINUE IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND USA.//

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-International Events-

India: This morning Air India Flight 171 crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad. The aircraft impacted the student housing at B.J. Medical College, a teaching hospital and large medical facility. Local authorities have claimed that there was only one survivor among the 242 souls on board. There is no confirmation on casualties sustained on the ground, however locals have provided the figure of 260 casualties all total (both those in the aircraft and on the ground). Aircraft debris is spread over a wide area throughout a densely-populated region, so the casualty count is expected to rise as recovery efforts continue.

Northern Ireland: Protests and riots alike continued throughout the region overnight, with locals continuing arson attacks on migrant centers. Yesterday afternoon, locals discovered that the family members of the migrants who assaulted a child (the incident that started all of this) were temporarily evacuated to a Leisure Center in Larne, which was promptly burned down by locals. Riots continued in Ballymena, and vandalism efforts have disrupted local train services as obstacles and fires were set on train tracks in a few locations around the area.

Middle East: Indications and warnings continue to mount regarding a potential war with Iran. The US State Department continues to issue region-wide warnings, though no specifics have been provided regarding the potential threats.

AC: Considering all possibilities, the recent threat warnings issued by the White House could also be a ruse, specifically an ambiguity-decreasing information operation. In other words, it could be a trick to pressure the Iranians into making a deal with regards to their nuclear aspirations. Either way, it is a dangerous game, and increased vigilance is recommended in any case due to the uncertainty of how events might transpire over the next few days.

-HomeFront-

Texas: Governor Greg Abbott has ordered the deployment of approximately 5,000 National Guard soldiers in preparation for the mass demonstration events planned for this weekend. These forces will augment the thousands of local and state police which have been tasked with keeping order during the thousands of protests that will take place around the nation on Saturday.

California: This afternoon U.S. Senator Alex Padilla was arrested after attempting to disrupt a press conference at which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was speaking. Senator Padilla resisted being removed from the room after causing the disruption, and was subsequently arrested by force in the hallway outside the event. The Senator was released shortly after the incident, and as of yet has not been charged.

USA: This afternoon a large scale communications outage was reported throughout the nation. Cloudflare, AWS, and Google Cloud all reported simultaneous issues with their platforms and services.

AC: No cause of the outages has been reported, however this is a major incident considering the timing of multiple independent systems going offline at the same time.

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Analyst Comments: When it comes to the chaos and kinetic activities in Northern Ireland, there are two main lines of effort by involved parties: There are the ethnically Irish protesters-turned-rioters, who have engaged in arson attacks in migrant communities in response to immigration issues. Separate from these incidents, looting has been observed taking place, which is largely being carried out by migrant communities themselves. This is complicating efforts to host legitimately peaceful demonstrations, as the situation in some areas is simply too chaotic to determine exactly what's going on. The situation in Northern Ireland has never been simple to describe, and it's been made worse by the establishment of migrant centers in local Irish communities.

In India, right now it's too soon to determine exactly what caused the crash of Flight 171. However local media claims that a mayday call was issued by the pilots immediately after takeoff, though in the short time between the call and the crash, it's not clear what might have happened. Video footage from shortly before the crash also indicates that the aircraft's flaps were fully retracted, which is very abnormal for any aircraft on takeoff, let along a very heavy long-haul flight fully laden with passengers and fuel.

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