BLACKWATER USA | DAILY BRIEF - Blackwater Worldwide

Posted by BW Actual on Oct 3rd 2025

Gaza

Hamas still hasn't formally responded to the ceasefire proposal it received Monday after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu approved it.
Pres. Trump had initially said Hamas would have "three or four days" to respond, but he seems unrushed to enforce that vague deadline - as long as Hamas is seriously considering the proposal (which seems to be the case).

Russia

Munich's airport became the latest major European travel hub to temporarily halt flights due to drone sightings in the area. As in similar episodes in other northern European cities, German officials didn't explicitly blame Russia, but they strongly insinuated they suspected Moscow was responsible.
Some European leaders - like Denmark's Prime Minister - are calling for a "drone wall" to block further incursions. The idea has been proposed before, but it hasn't been enthusiastically embraced. For one thing, it would be prohibitively expensive to build a system that could effectively protect the entire bloc from tiny, cheap, adaptable drones.
Russia, which dubiously denies responsibility for the drone incursions, chided the wall idea through an official statement: "As history has shown, erecting walls is always a bad thing." Indeed, it would be far easier, cheaper, and more effective for Russia to stop sending drones into Europe in the first place.

Venezuela

With typical bombast, Venezuela's Foreign and Defense Ministries loudly complained that at least five U.S. F-35 fighter jets flew "close to the Venezuelan coast," presenting "a vulgarity, a provocation, [and] a threat to the security of the nation."
Defense Minister Gen. Vladimir Padrino defiantly declared that the fighter jets' presence "doesn’t intimidate us" - though the attention he's giving to the episode suggests otherwise.
In any case, it doesn't sound like the jets came anywhere close to Venezuelan airspace: Caracas claims the closest distance they came to Venezuelan territory was 75 km (about 45 miles). By comparison, Venezuelan airspace extends just 12 nautical miles (22 km / 14 miles) from the coast.

Drug cartels

Pres. Trump issued a confidential notice to Congress that referred to the drug cartels he's deployed the military against as "unlawful combatants" and called the U.S. military's anti-cartel operations an "armed conflict."
Legal experts suggest Trump is using the rhetorical shift to bolster his case for claiming extraordinary wartime powers to use against cartels, including authorities to lawfully detain cartel members - as enemy fighters - indefinitely and try them in military courts, and to kill them even when they pose no immediate threat.
As usual, Trump's critics disagree and say the move sets a dangerous precedent.