Nates_space12

US army veteran INF OEF, researcher and writer on National Security// Opinions are my own.

[Nates_space12 @NatesSpace12]

THREAD on possible terrorist links with Tren De Aragua (TDA):

I will highlight historical incidents and connections between the Iranian proxy Hezbollah and Tren De Aragua.👇👇

[Nates_space12 @NatesSpace12]

This is the key to taking down and uprooting TDA. Target the financiers of their operations.

[Tracker (Tren De Aragua Tracker) @TDATracker247]

Brazil -

Financial operator of the Venezuelan faction Tren de Aragua is arrested in Rio de Janeiro.
Courtesy of @AMDesignWorks
https://t.co/MnOvbmjUCS

[Nates_space12 @NatesSpace12]

@KimWexlerMAJD @MasonicFind Freemasons prohibit illegal or immoral acts.

[Tracker (Tren De Aragua Tracker) @TDATracker247]

Brazil -

Financial operator of the Venezuelan faction Tren de Aragua is arrested in Rio de Janeiro.
Courtesy of @AMDesignWorks
https://t.co/MnOvbmjUCS

[Nates_space12 @NatesSpace12]

@InSightCrime What does insight crime consider a significant presence?

[Nates_space12 @NatesSpace12]

Excellent news: TDA leader Niño Guerrero is DEAD after a U.S. military strike. Multiple sources and @TDATracker247 confirming it.

Tren de Aragua has brutally harmed and killed thousands. Retribution has finally come. Pray this brings solace to the victims and their families, for this victory is for them.

[Tracker (Tren De Aragua Tracker) @TDATracker247]

We got him folks.

We got Nino Guerrero

[Tracker (Tren De Aragua Tracker) @TDATracker247]

Putting the puzzle pieces together -

Something I would like to point out. Last year in October 2025 this article from @infobae indicated that Niño Guerrero was active in the mining area in Bolivar. It seems that Intel was 100% spot on given the events of the last 24hrs.

[Amanda @AHD_from_TX]

Largest Ever Counterterrorism Training Exercise Held in Central London as UK Threat Level at 'Severe' - HSToday https://t.co/jcG3uyBIm1

[Amanda @AHD_from_TX]

Global Terrorism Threat Assessment 2026 https://t.co/wyLCt7D0ls

[Tracker (Tren De Aragua Tracker) @TDATracker247]

Review and Analysis - Tren de Aragua.

With the arrest of 25 Tren de Aragua members across multiple U.S. states this week, this was a very high profile and impactful case. The case involved District Attorneys from Colorado, Tennessee, Florida, Northern Indiana, and Eastern Washington.

These Tren de Aragua members were not just from Venezuela but also Colombia and Honduras.

The most interesting fact in the case is the individual Maikel Jesus Albornoz-Jimenez. Who was a member of Fuerzas de Acciones Especiales de la Policía Nacional Bolivariana (FAES).

This unit was created in 2016 as an elite command of the Venezuelan National Police. This unit has become one of the most feared police units in the country of Venezuela and often been accused of being an instrument of Nicholas Maduro’s regime.

Despite what many critics and researchers have said about Tren de Aragua, through our independent research and analysis we have always suspected that Tren de Aragua ranks were supplemented by current or former military or police personnel.

This would explain the rapid expansion and their ability to coordinate across the United States.

[Amanda @AHD_from_TX]

PERSPECTIVE: Selective Threats: A Counterterrorism Strategy Built on Politics

This week the White House released its 2026 United States Counterterrorism Strategy. Sixteen pages. I read it twice to be fair. I still can’t believe we published it.

What we published is an ideological pamphlet with a White House seal on the cover.

Strategy documents aren’t press releases. They’re how the federal government tells its 100,000-plus security professionals what to work on, tells Congress what to fund, and tells our allies what we’ll show up for. Every word moves resources, opens or closes investigations, and shifts the priorities of every fusion center in the country.

A CT strategy is supposed to do three things: name real threats, get written by people who’ve done the work, and get briefed to allies before it gets stapled to a podium. This one doesn’t do any of them.

After 30 years in this work – military, FBI, State, DHS, Afghanistan, INTERPOL – I think about the analysts, agents, case officers, and diplomats who’ll have to brief this document to allies and then look those allies in the eye. They didn’t write it, they don’t believe in it, and they’ll spend the next four years cleaning up after it.

This document’s going to cost American lives. The drafters know that. They published it anyway.

Link to article in comments ⬇️

[Nates_space12 @NatesSpace12]

@AHD_from_TX With this assessment it must be bad. Thank you for posting it.

[FBI Director Kash Patel @FBIDirectorKash]

This FBI stopped FOUR terrorist attack plots in December 2025 alone.

12/12: FBI arrested 4 members of the far-left, anti-government group - Turtle Island Liberation Front - who were organizing a NYE bombing targeting multiple businesses across southern California.

12/21: FBI worked with our state and local partners in Pennsylvania to arrest an individual who had been researching ISIS propaganda, to utilize in an explosives attack campaign.

12/29: FBI worked with our partners in Texas to arrest and disrupt an ISIS sympathizer who intended to provide bomb making materials to a foreign terrorist organization.

12/31: FBI successfully collaborated with state and federal partners in New York and took down an individual desiring to be an ISIS soldier in North Carolina, who wanted to conduct a mass casualty attack on NYE.

AND before December even arrived, this FBI stopped a planned ISIS-inspired Halloween terror attack near Detroit - where a group was stockpiling weapons, scouting targets, and training at gun ranges.

With new technology, a totally revamped enterprise intelligence sharing system, and amazing law enforcement personnel – under President Trump’s leadership we have rebuilt the @FBI into a machine that is totally focused on cutting off threats at the source.

That 24/7, no-fail mission will never stop.

[Nates_space12 @NatesSpace12]

@TheHaoleBones 😮

[Nates_space12 @NatesSpace12]

@AwakenedOutlaw @Teagan1776 https://t.co/PJOvsDyI0g

[Nates_space12 @NatesSpace12]

4/11
The data spans from December 2018 to April 2023, sourced from the FRC. Here is a breakdown by year of the number of incidents followed by a chart of incidents per month:
2018 - 50
2019 -82
2020 - 55
2021 - 92
2022 - 134
2023 - 406

[Tracker (Tren De Aragua Tracker) @TDATracker247]

Tren de Aragua Headlines Past Two Weeks -

50 Tren de Aragua members arrested in Chile and Peru in total.

Peru -

The Aragua Train expands outside Lima and hides in hard-to-reach areas, organized crime prosecutor warns.
https://t.co/KYWvjrZ3rY

- Massive operation in Peru involving 8 regions of the country.

- 24 members of Tren de Aragua Arrested.

Key piece of information - Regarding their operational TTP's.

"In addition, the prosecutor warned that the organization uses mechanisms to avoid justice, like the constant rotation of its members. “Four months are in one apartment then they go to another,” he said."
(Article)

Chile -

The identity of the four detainees linked to the Aragua Train after kidnapping a businessman is revealed.
https://t.co/KjZzDcCgGy

Prior to the formalization of the four arrested for the kidnapping of the hardware businessman Jorge Vera, the identity of the subjects linked to the Aragua Train was revealed.

Extortion Case of a businessman whom they extorted his family for 50 million pesos. (2 Million US)

Chilean Nino Antonio Meza González.(40)
Venezuelans
Cándido José Franco Dávila (29),
José Rafael Salazar Torres (31),
Greisson López Arteaga (33).

https://t.co/43DR5kfMtZ

Chile -

They washed more than $4 billion: criminal network that moved luck from the drug dealer in 3 regions of the country.
https://t.co/ndIw5VkhlK

- 22 Members of Tren de Aragua arrested

"According to the background, the organization was composed mainly of Venezuelan citizens (18 people), several of them linked to the criminal group “Train of Aragua”. In addition, two Colombian citizens, a Cuban and a Chilean, were arrested."
(Article)

"The research spanned more than a year and focused on analyzing bank accounts and financial movements that allowed a complex system to take money out of the country. In total, it is estimated that they managed to move more than 4 billion pesos abroad through transfers and use of cryptocurrencies."
(Article)

[Amanda @AHD_from_TX]

Australia’s Complacency on Terrorism Exposed in Interim Report Following Deadly Hanukkah Attack

By Hanukkah 2025, Australia found itself grappling with a troubling reality: a critical complacency regarding terrorism and the safety of its Jewish community. This sentiment is subtly woven into Justice Virginia Bell’s interim report issued by the royal commission probing last December’s devastating terrorist attack at Bondi Beach, which marked the deadliest act of terror on Australian soil to date. The report refrains from explicitly attributing blame or identifying failures in intelligence and policing, as these investigations will unfold over the next five months, some behind closed doors.

However, the interim report is damning in its implications. It highlights a national security framework that deprioritized counter-terrorism efforts following the fall of the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in 2019, only to fail to adequately adjust its focus when the threat resurfaced. Despite persistent warnings from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) regarding the likelihood of terrorist attacks and targeted violence against Jews, the institutional response was insufficient. The report points to dwindling funding, lapses in coordination, and outdated national plans, alongside a striking failure by New South Wales (NSW) Police to act on pre-emptive alerts regarding the safety of the Jewish community event.

Link to article in comments ⬇️

[Tracker (Tren De Aragua Tracker) @TDATracker247]

43 Mexican Mafia Gangsters Arrested on Indictments Alleging Racketeering, Drug Trafficking, Kidnapping, Assault, and Murder
https://t.co/Rse39DRjJZ

[Amanda @AHD_from_TX]

The Counterterrorism Threat Blind Spot

The counterterrorism community has increasingly recognized that extremist actors are using artificial intelligence. Research institutions and government reviewers have documented how AI tools are exploited for propaganda, recruitment, and operational planning. These contributions identify a real and growing threat. But they share a common assumption that may be obscuring a more consequential one. 

The dominant frame treats AI as an instrument: a tool that adversarial actors deliberately weaponize. The threat originates in the intent of the actor who deploys the AI for recruitment, who jailbreaks the system for planning, and who engineers the chatbot to deliver propaganda. The policy response follows logically: detect the adversarial use, disrupt the actor, and harden the systems. This is familiar counterterrorism logic. 

This article argues that a more consequential threat operates through an entirely different mechanism. General-purpose conversational AI systems, operating exactly as their developers intended, introduce systematic mechanisms that reduce cognitive friction, increase reinforcement, and compress timelines within established radicalization pathways. They function as structural accelerants independent of adversarial intent. The chatbot is not a weapon someone aims. It is a room someone walks into that changes how they think. 

The distinction between instrument and environment carries direct operational consequences. If the threat is instrumental, disrupting the actor disrupts the threat. If the threat is structural, disrupting every extremist actor on earth leaves the accelerant intact, embedded in the design of every general-purpose conversational AI system. Current counterterrorism frameworks are built for the first scenario. The second scenario has not been systematically addressed. 

Link to article in comments ⬇️

[Nates_space12 @NatesSpace12]

@TDATracker247 @TheFeralTimes Very interesting case here.