The Wire - October 20, 2025

//The Wire//2300Z October 20, 2025//
//ROUTINE//
//BLUF: THIEVES MAKE OFF WITH PRICELESS CROWN JEWELS FOLLOWING HEIST AT THE LOUVRE. NO KINGS PROTESTS DEMONSTRATE HIGH-LEVEL ORGANIZATION. CEASEFIRE BROKEN IN MIDDLE EAST.//

 -----BEGIN TEARLINE-----

-International Events-

Global: This morning a large-scale outage of Amazon Web Services (AWS) was reported, which caused outages of millions of services and websites. The cause of the outage was not malign action, but rather improper management of network load balancing.

Analyst Comment: A fix has been implemented, but it may take some time to restore services.

France: Over the weekend a heist was reported at the Louvre as thieves broke in to the museum during broad daylight. The thieves posed as construction workers and used a truck mounted ladder in order to gain entry to a balcony housing the Gallery of Apollo. From there, they used cutting tools to breach a window which led to the exhibits displaying the historic crown jewels of France. The thieves broke into the glass cases housing several exhibits, making off with many major priceless pieces and artifacts.

Analyst Comment: Despite their success, this heist was more or less an organized smash and grab which not even a big wooden door can protect from, it seems. In their haste to egress from their looting spree, the thieves left a wealth of evidence behind as the crown of Empress Eugénie was discovered cast into the gutter on the street after the raid.

Middle East: The ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was breached as Israeli forces conducted widespread bombings throughout Gaza. Israeli forces claim that Hamas violated the ceasefire first, though President Trump stated that the violation (which appears at the moment to be a small arms attack which killed two IDF soldiers), did not originate from Hamas leadership. Nevertheless the United States endorsed the targeting efforts, which PM Netanyahu stated took the form of 153 tons of bombs being dropped throughout Gaza City.

Analyst Comment: Most international actors are pretending that the ceasefire is still in place. Turning the ceasefire on and off like a spigot is likely to continue; whenever either side wants to conduct targeting the ceasefire will be "off" for the precise amount of time required to conduct the strikes, then the ceasefire will be "on" again once complete, while everyone pretends like nothing happened.

-HomeFront-

North Carolina: Two arson attacks on Churches were reported over the weekend. The Calvary's Cross Baptist Church and Tabernacle Baptist Church in Cleveland County were intentionally set on fire by arsonists. Local citizens who spotted the fires immediately were able to extinguish the fires quickly, saving both churches. The arsonists have not been apprehended and anyone with information is urged to call the Cleveland County Sheriff with any information that might be helpful in apprehending those responsible.

Florida - Yesterday afternoon the US Secret Service discovered a hunting stand in a tree in a wooded area next to a US Army Reserve center directly adjacent to Palm Beach International Airport. The FBI is now investigating as the hunting stand had clear line of sight to the Customs and Border Patrol parking aprons, which are also frequently used by Air Force One to transport President Trump from Washington to Mar a Lago.

Analyst Comment: For those who may think this was "just a hunting stand", there aren't a lot of whitetail on the parking aprons used by Customs and Border Patrol at Palm Beach International Airport. This stand was set up with a direct line of sight to this facility, in an extremely small wooded area right in the heart of a heavy urban area mere feet from a military installation. Right now there's not much to go on other than the discovery of the stand. However, it would be very foolish to just chalk this up to the ubiquitous "Florida Man" considering the clear and present danger that is presented by countless insurgent groups around the nation.

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Analyst Comments: The weekend No Kings protests turned out to largely be fairly low-intensity. However, at many of these events, turnout was quite substantial. Just like the other similar protests, most of the attendees were elderly. However, the sheer scale of the organization of these events was substantial. Protest Marshals coordinated flag and sign dispersal, and organized transportation for millions of people. This was no organic demonstration effort, this was certainly very well organized and coordinated by a strict hierarchy from the top down. As such, one might be tempted to dismiss these efforts...when this level of control and funding is required to prop up a civil issue it's hard to imagine much genuine sentiment behind it.

This would be, however, a mistake. Just because a movement is not organic (and the people are paid or otherwise rewarded for participation), doesn't mean it isn't effective. These events are trial runs for the 2028 election season, and so far it's been fairly effective at rallying millions of people during a random weekend in October. So as entertaining as some of these events are, it would be wise to see the grand strategy that is playing out at the higher levels.

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