The Wire - April 28, 2025

//The Wire//2300Z April 28, 2025//
//PRIORITY//
//BLUF: VEHICLE RAMMING ATTACK KILLS 11X IN VANCOUVER, CAN. MAJOR BLACKOUT UNDERWAY IN SOUTHERN EUROPE. GROUND STOP ISSUED FOR NEWARK DUE TO RADIO COMMS OUTAGE. CEASEFIRE IN UKRAINE TO BEGIN ON MAY 8TH. LIKELY CARTEL ARMS SMUGGLER REMAINS FUGITIVE AFTER BEING RELEASED BY JUDGE. SOPHISTICATED IED FOUND AT CHURCH IN OREGON.//

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-International Events-

Canada: A vehicle ramming attack was conducted at the Lapu Lapu Filipino Heritage festival in Vancouver on Saturday night. Authorities state that the attacker intentionally drove his vehicle into a large crowd of people gathered at the intersection of Frasier and E 41st Avenue, killing 11x people and wounding dozens more. Local authorities have identified the attacker as Kai-Ji Adam Lo, who was arrested at the scene. Local police stated that the attacker was very well known to police, and had been the result of many emergency responses involving mental health incidents.

Europe: This morning, a large-scale electrical power outage was reported throughout Spain, before rapidly cascading to include Portugal, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. A few hours after the outage began, French utilities started to come back online. Spain and Portugal appear to be hardest hit, with a total blackout affecting much of the two countries. Portugal's grid operator has not given a timeline for a return of power, and has indicated that the delay might be significant. Grid operators in Spain stated that it will take most of the day to restore power throughout the blackout zones, though as night has fallen much of the region remains without electricity. A state of emergency has been declared throughout Spain, and officials in the provinces of Andalusia, Extremadura, and Madrid (plus the city proper) have requested federal authorities declare the crisis a Civil Protection Level 3, so as to maintain order throughout the night in major cities as the outage persists.

AC: This level of emergency declaration is usually only reserved for wartime as it involves a declaration of martial law, and a widespread deployment of military forces. Checkpoints and ID checks are also a part of this plan, along with the restriction of travel, curfews, etc.

Ukraine: President Putin has announced that a general ceasefire will take place from May 8-10 along all fronts. AC: Neither American nor Ukrainian leadership has commented on the ceasefire announcement yet, nor have there been any indications as to if Ukraine will be participating in the 72-hour cessation of hostilities.

Red Sea/HOA: An aviation mishap was reported onboard the USS HARRY S TRUMAN (CVN 75). During routine aviation operations, one F/A-18 aircraft was lost overboard while being towed by aircraft handlers. The tractor towing the aircraft was lost overboard as well. No casualties were reported as a result of this incident.

AC: Warfare is dangerous business, and it would seem that this proverbial "business is getting out of control" for the TRUMAN. This deployment has been rough so far for the entire strike group, as military forces globally experience the follow-on effects of an increased optempo, stressed maintenance schedules, and even complacency. On this one deployment to the Red Sea, one of her escorts shot down one of her own aircraft in a friendly-fire incident (Dec, 2024), she collided with a merchant vessel resulting in damage to her fantail (Feb, 2025), and now an entire aircraft was lost overboard. This is important in the context that she is on her second Captain (the first skipper was fired after the collision) during this deployment...a deployment which was extended a few weeks ago amid rising tensions with the Iranians.

 -HomeFront-

California: Over the weekend, vandals set fire to a utility pole in Sacramento, causing internet connectivity loss throughout the eastern and central parts of the city for much of the day on Saturday.

New Jersey: This afternoon a ground stop was issued for all aviation traffic departing Newark following a reported loss of radio capabilities at the tower.

AC: Since this is the busiest air traffic control sector in the United States, this is a big deal. Details are sketchy at best, but pilots report a loss of radio communication with the tower at Newark for unknown reasons. Some unconfirmed reports suggest Newark tower lost radar at some point as well. Either way (and as serious as this incident is), this has happened before.

Illinois: A woman was murdered on the Green Line in Chicago last Thursday, after a brief altercation. Witnesses state that Willie Holmes initially started an altercation with a stranger (identified as Emily Carlson) while transiting on an L train, prompting the victim's boyfriend to confront the assailant. Holmes then produced a knife and murdered Carlson.

Wyoming: An alleged cartel weapons trafficker remains at large after being a no-show in court on Friday. Ricardo Paez-Quinones was originally arrested after being caught smuggling around 18,000 small arms rounds in Carbon County last month. Paez-Quinones, being an illegal immigrant that was previously deported twice, was indicted by a grand jury following his initial arrest.

AC: Despite the original prosecutor arguing that the individual was very likely to be a flight risk due to his connections to organized crime, U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Scott Klosterman released him from custody on a $20,000 bond. Because this bond was unsecured, he did not have to pay a dime up front for his release. He simply walked free to become a fugitive after being allowed to do so by the judge, who knew that most of the suspect's family lived in Mexico, and that he was a twice-deported illegal alien.

Oregon: Details regarding the discovery of a suspicious device have been released by local authorities. Last week, a suspicious package was discovered by an employee of a local mechanic shop in La Grande. After authorities were alerted to the device, a local Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team confirmed that the device was an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that was fashioned as a crude pipe bomb with ball bearings added for additional shrapnel.

AC: This story did not gain much traction when it first came to light, however additional details (and photo evidence) has confirmed that this device was located on the sidewalk immediately adjacent to Calvary Chapel. This context indicates that this small-town news story is likely related to the general increase in risks to religious institutions around the nation.

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Analyst Comments:

The blackout in Europe is very likely the largest power outage to strike the continent in recent memory, and the effects are very widespread. When power goes out in one neighborhood minor inconvenience is the result, but when a outage strikes on a continental scale, very serious impacts are observed.

Portuguese grid officials have claimed that the outage was the result of "rare atmospheric phenomenon". This is comparatively common when severe solar weather causes electromagnetic variations in the Earth's ionosphere. However space weather for the past few days has been very mild, with no watches or warnings even being issued at all over the past few days. Power grid fluctuations occurring with this little solar activity are completely unheard of, making these space weather claims dubious at best. Due to the language barrier, it is possible that the references to "atmospheric" causes were not related to space weather, but rather actual weather. Hot weather can cause power lines to stretch and droop into other lines, the resulting shorting of which can cause exceptionally widespread outages if it occurs in the right place. This has been the cause of several very infamous power outages over the years (combined with mismanaged regulation of voltage, causing transmission lines to heat up and stretch even more).

The next most likely theory that is circulating at the moment is that the outage was caused by multiple independent cyberattacks on the core communications functions of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-e). At the moment there's no evidence available to the public that can confirm this for the time being. It also must be noted that almost two weeks ago, Spanish grid operator Red Electrica reached a milestone regarding their renewable energy sector. On April 16, the grid operator claimed that the Spanish electrical grid ran fully on solar, wind, and hydro power for the first time in history. This highlights the recent substantial efforts to further allegedly "carbon-neutral" standards and goals...efforts which in the wake of last month's outage at Heathrow Airport are drawing scrutiny. Of course, not every power outage can be blamed on one single root cause; there are usually long chains of causation for events like this. However, the recent major changes throughout the continent, among all sectors of energy production, certainly will be under major scrutiny as Europe's energy crisis at large starts to impact the average citizen more directly than it has in the past.

In Canada, local authorities claim that the attack in Vancouver was not terrorism, however eyewitness statements overwhelmingly confirm this was an intentional terrorist attack. Locals reported the assailant deliberately waited for the event to draw to a close before conducting the attack. He waited until the traffic barriers were being removed as the event was winding down, at which point he threated his vehicle through the barriers that were being removed, to intentionally target the crowd that still remained. After the attack, the assailant exited his vehicle and was confronted/detained by those at the event.

While it would be wise to confirm the details of the investigation into this event, enough information has been conveyed by event-goers to fill in the gaps with regards to risk assessment. In this case, it seems as though another mass-casualty event has taken place that would have been preventable had complacency not been a major contributing factor. Reports vary on the status of anti-vehicle barricades for this event. Some state that there were no barricades at all, but rather standard traffic cones which were used for traffic control purposes, while others claim the limited barriers that were emplaced were not sufficient in either traffic control or in preventing the attack itself.

Whatever the barrier situation was at the time of the incident, clearly it was not sufficient either in deterring or stopping a major terror attack. Instead of waiting for crowds to disperse fully, traffic barriers being removed before the event was fully over was also likely a factor in attack planning. Much like previous incidents, the proximity to risk is a huge factor many people do not realize. Many people will evacuate a building that's on fire...only to stand 4 feet from the door. Or even more commonly, sprint out of the building just to immediately stop in the doorway, blocking the egress of those behind them.

In this case, the exact same mentality could have been a major contributing factor for the success of this attack. If the event ended at midnight, and the traffic barriers and counterterrorism efforts were ceased only 10-15 minutes later, this would have obviously not been adequate to stop the threats that remained as crowds dispersed throughout the area. As such, constant vigilance and situational awareness are desperately needed at all times, especially if local authorities and event-goers alike are largely complacent. Terrorists are patient. Terrorists do not shuffle their feet and moan about their shift being too long. Terrorists can wait a long time and are dedicated to their goals. Terrorists will wait for the precise moment that they have the best possible chance for success, knowing that authorities have to be successful in preventing attacks at all times...while the terrorist only has to be successful once.

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