President Trump has been talking about withdrawing the U.S. from NATO since his first term and has refused to get deeply involved in the Ukraine war. Recently, U.S.-European ties were further strained because Europe declined to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even though European oil supply was directly at stake.

Some European leaders have been insisting the continent can defend itself without American help, while simultaneously criticizing the U.S. for leaving Europe unprotected. At the same time, Viktor Orbán lost the election in Hungary, removing the last major European voice against escalation of the Ukraine war. As a result, Europe is now closer to open conflict with Russia than at any point in the last three decades, and likely without U.S. backing.

A detailed analysis of the overall warfighting capabilities of both sides reveals how dangerously unprepared Europe is for that confrontation.

According to SIPRI data, Europe, including the UK, currently fields approximately 1.47 million active-duty military personnel against Russia’s 1.32 million. On paper, Europe holds a narrow manpower advantage. In practice, that advantage is negated by the most consequential asymmetry in the entire comparison: combat experience. Russia’s 1.32 million active personnel are drawn from a force that has fought a large-scale conventional war for over three years, encompassing combined arms operations, mass artillery, drone warfare, electronic warfare, and urban combat at a scale not seen in Europe since World War II.

Virtually every Russian soldier currently serving has either fought in Ukraine or replaced someone who did. Furthermore, Russia’s entire military is under a single command structure while European troops are distributed across more than two dozen separate national armies with no unified command, no shared doctrine, and vastly different readiness levels. A CSIS assessment concludes that Europe’s problem is not one of headline scale but of readiness, coordination, and the ability to deploy quickly.

Russia demonstrated in 2022 that it can rapidly expand its force by drawing on conscript veterans and reserves, generating hundreds of thousands of additional soldiers within months. Most European nations have allowed their reserve and conscript systems to atrophy over the post-Cold War decades. Only a few European nations still have conscription, and the period has been greatly reduced over the past 30 years. Furthermore, countries such as Germany have very liberal requirements, which allow conscripts to select alternative civilian service instead.

The combat experience gap is the single most important asymmetry that raw personnel numbers do not capture. Russia has spent three years fighting a peer conventional war involving massed artillery, coordinated air defense suppression, drone attrition at industrial scale, and combined arms maneuver under fire. Russia’s professional officer and NCO corps has been largely preserved relative to overall losses, with the proportion of officer deaths declining from around 10 percent of total fatalities in early 2022 to between 2 and 3 percent by late 2024, as the burden of frontline casualties shifted to volunteer infantry.

This means the experienced leadership cadre that trains and commands Russian forces has survived the war largely intact.

In terms of hardware, Russia currently maintains around 3,460 operational tanks, including 620 T-90M, 350 T-80BVM, 470 T-72B3/B3M, 1,000 T-72 variants, 600 T-62M/MV, and 120 T-55A, with over 2,100 additional older tanks in storage. Production has kept pace with attrition throughout the Ukraine war. Russia’s defense sector increased T-90 production from approximately 90 to 110 tanks per year in 2020 and 2021 to 280 to 300 in 2024, effectively tripling output, and the number of T-90M tanks grew from approximately 50 to 200 units between 2022 and late 2025.

Between 2026 and 2036, Moscow plans to build at least 1,783 T-90M and T-90M2 tanks, with 1,118 slated for completion between 2027 and 2029, suggesting Russia will enter any future conflict with a larger and more modern armored force than it had in 2022.

On the European side, Turkey leads with 2,381 tanks, though most are older M48 and M60 variants. Poland has emerged as the most operationally capable armored force on the continent, rapidly fielding Leopard 2, South Korean K2 Black Panther, and US M1A2 Abrams tanks. Greece fields 1,385 tanks including Leopard 2A6 variants, with Germany, Romania, and Spain following.

Europe’s aggregate tank count exceeds Russia’s operational inventory, but that total is fragmented across more than twenty national armies with differing maintenance standards, logistics chains, ammunition types, and doctrine. Russia fields a single integrated force under unified command.

Russia’s total aircraft strength stands at 4,237, including 861 fighters, 698 dedicated attack aircraft, and 1,643 helicopters of which 556 are attack variants. Europe fields more total airframes in aggregate, with advanced platforms including the Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafale, F-35A and F-35B, and Gripen giving it a qualitative edge in individual aircraft. Russia’s frontline consists primarily of Su-35S, Su-34, Su-30SM, and MiG-31 variants, with very limited Su-57 fifth-generation aircraft in service. Despite Europe’s platform quality, Russia retains a decisive advantage in integrated air defense, with layered S-400 and S-500 systems that European air forces would need to suppress at enormous cost and risk before achieving meaningful air superiority over Russian territory.

Europe also lacks the high-altitude ISR platforms, space-based targeting networks, and strategic enablers that underpin any major air campaign, capabilities that European air forces currently cannot replicate without US support.

Europe’s naval advantage on paper is severely undermined by chronic readiness failures. As of early 2026, both HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are out of action. Only three of the six Type 45 Daring-class destroyers are available for service, just six of the eight Type 23 frigates can operate, and only one in five Astute-class submarines is in the water.

Of the total Royal Navy fleet of 63 ships, only about half are available for duty, leading Former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord West to describe the situation as a disgrace. HMS Queen Elizabeth’s docking period in Rosyth is several months behind schedule, while HMS Prince of Wales, though on five days’ notice to sail as of March 2026, is not deployed.

The actual European carrier picture in April 2026 is therefore a maximum of three serviceable carriers: France’s nuclear-powered Charles de Gaulle, Italy’s Cavour capable of operating F-35Bs, and Spain’s Juan Carlos I in a dual carrier and amphibious role. The two most capable European carriers, both British, are simultaneously non-operational. Italy also operates the Trieste, a 33,000-ton amphibious assault ship that entered service in 2024, and France operates three Mistral-class helicopter carriers.

France plans to begin construction of a next-generation nuclear carrier in 2026 at an estimated cost of €10 billion, with sea trials not expected until 2036 or 2037. Russia has no operational aircraft carrier, with the Admiral Kuznetsov remaining in extended refit. Russia never depended on carrier power; its naval strategy is built around submarines, long-range missiles, and land-based aviation.

In submarines, France operates four Triomphant-class ballistic missile submarines providing continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence, plus a growing force of Suffren-class nuclear attack submarines, with the third Suffren-class SSN Tourville entering operational service in July 2025 and three more due by 2030. The UK nominally operates four Vanguard-class SSBNs plus five Astute-class nuclear attack submarines, with the sixth and seventh Astute-class SSNs entering service in 2025 and 2026, but with only one in five Astute boats currently at sea, the operational reality falls far short of the nominal inventory.

Germany operates six Type 212A conventional submarines with air-independent propulsion. Norway, the Netherlands, Greece, and Turkey field additional conventional submarine fleets. Russia’s submarine force, centered on the Northern Fleet, remains fully intact and formidable, despite losing 29 naval vessels in the Ukraine war including 2 submarines and suffering severe Black Sea Fleet degradation.

Russia holds an overwhelming advantage in Arctic capability that has no European equivalent. Putin confirmed Russia operates 34 diesel icebreakers and 8 nuclear-powered icebreakers, with additional nuclear vessels under construction, and Russia is the only country in the world that builds and operates nuclear-powered icebreakers. Russia’s fleet of 42 icebreakers includes 8 nuclear-powered vessels, with five more planned including the Rossiya, a 71,380-ton Leader Project vessel.

The Lider-class nuclear icebreaker under construction at the Zvezda shipyard will be the most powerful ever built, with 150 MW output and no global equivalent, expected by 2030.

European NATO members collectively have 45 icebreaking-capable ships, 12 fewer than Russia. France’s only icebreaker is a Polar Class 2 vessel capable of operating only in moderate ice conditions. Finland maintains a sizeable fleet primarily for Baltic use, and Sweden’s icebreakers are also Baltic-focused.

Russia’s Arctic dominance enables it to ensure year-round navigation through the Northern Sea Route, support military movements to Arctic bases, maintain submarine operations under Arctic ice, and deny Europe any ability to contest the High North.

Russia has over 5,500 nuclear warheads, with the Federation of American Scientists estimating Russian non-strategic tactical nuclear warheads alone at 1,912. Europe’s independent nuclear forces consist solely of France and the UK. France has approximately 290 nuclear weapons and the UK has 225.

In March 2026, President Macron announced a significant shift, ordering an increase in France’s nuclear arsenal beyond 290 warheads, ending public disclosure of stockpile figures, and moving toward a concept of forward deterrence placing French nuclear forces at the heart of European security.

France will maintain a full nuclear triad of SSBNs, nuclear cruise missiles, and air-launched capabilities. Britain is currently dependent at any one time on a single SSBN on patrol. The asymmetry is stark: Russia’s 1,912 tactical nuclear warheads vastly outnumber anything Europe can field independently, and Russia’s doctrine explicitly contemplates first use of tactical nuclear weapons to de-escalate a conventional conflict.

On direct military hardware, Russia holds decisive advantages where they matter most. Its ground forces are battle-hardened at a scale Europe cannot match. Its armored production is outpacing losses and accelerating toward a larger future force. Its submarine fleet threatens European Atlantic supply lines from an intact Northern Fleet.

Its Arctic dominance is essentially uncontested. And its tactical nuclear arsenal dwarfs anything Europe can independently field, with Russia explicitly reserving the right to use those weapons first to halt a conventional conflict going against it.

Europe has more tanks on paper and more total aircraft, but paper inventories obscure readiness failures, fragmented command structures, and a near-total absence of peer conventional warfare experience. Europe’s carrier advantage exists only on spreadsheets: in April 2026, both British carriers are simultaneously non-operational, leaving Europe with three serviceable carriers against a Russian naval strategy built around submarines and long-range missiles that remain fully intact.

In short, without the US, Europe stands very little chance in a war with Russia.

The post Firepower Analysis: Europe vs. Russia: Without U.S., Europe Severely Outgunned appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Viktor Orbán’s concession on Sunday following Hungary’s parliamentary election removes the most consistent single-state obstacle to EU consensus on Ukraine, and in doing so raises the probability of European escalation in a conflict the continent lacks the military capacity to sustain without American backing.

Orbán conceded defeat after early results showed the opposition Tisza party on course for a two-thirds majority, with Tisza projected to win 135 of 199 seats and Fidesz taking 57. Voter turnout surpassed 77%, the highest since the fall of communism in 1989. Tisza’s leader, Péter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider who founded the party two years ago, will become prime minister.

Orbán had functioned as a structural brake on EU Ukraine policy. For more than a year, joint EU summit communiqués on Ukraine carried an asterisk noting the position “was firmly supported by 26 heads of state or government” rather than all 27, because Orbán refused to sign any statement backing Kyiv. He vetoed a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine, tying the bloc to a dispute over a damaged pipeline carrying Russian oil. He also blocked a 6.6 billion euro lethal aid package from the EU’s European Peace Facility, satellite image sharing with Ukraine, and EU accession talks for Kyiv.

Magyar stated Monday that Hungary would maintain its opt-out from participating in the €90 billion (approximately $100 billion) loan financially but would not veto it, allowing the EU to proceed. His personal reservations about weapons transfers and Ukraine’s EU accession bid are structurally irrelevant. Measures requiring unanimity were blocked by Orbán. Magyar will not block them. The brake is gone.

The significance of Orbán’s removal is that, without a veto blocking consensus, the EU is more likely to agree on additional weapons, money, and equipment transfers to Ukraine. That trajectory increases the probability of a Russian reaction. The question is whether European leaders have accurately calculated the risk.

European behavior suggests they have not. Countries that genuinely believe they must confront a nuclear-armed adversary, the world’s number-two military power, alone would be pushing for negotiations, not escalation.

The fact that Europe continues to increase support for Ukraine and celebrates Magyar’s victory indicates European leaders privately calculate that American intervention remains available despite the Trump administration’s rhetoric. That calculation may be wrong. When the Strait of Hormuz was threatened, and European energy security was directly at stake, Europe did not mobilize a naval coalition to support the U.S.

Even if they did not want to support Trump, they should have been willing to fight for their own oil and their own self-interest, but they were not. A bloc unwilling to deploy forces to the Strait of Hormuz and face Iran, which lacks a navy, in order to protect its own oil supply, is not a bloc prepared to fight Russia, the world’s number-two military power, over Ukrainian territory.

Trump has considered withdrawing the US from NATO and has stated he no longer wants involvement in the Ukraine war. The only basis on which Europe might still expect American intervention in a full-scale war with Russia is Article 5. But Article 5 is a collective defense obligation triggered by an external attack on a member state. It does not apply if NATO member actions provoke a Russian response.

If escalating weapons transfers or intelligence support crosses Russian red lines and Moscow retaliates, the legal and political basis for invoking Article 5 becomes contested. Russia has already argued that Western weapons used to strike Russian territory constitute co-belligerence. A substantial number of European countries are not NATO members, and Russia could strike any of them without triggering Article 5 at all.

There has been a lot of hollow talk from Canada and Europe about going it alone without the U.S. Most European militaries spent three decades configured for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, not peer warfare. Their doctrine, training, and institutional culture reflect that.

In Afghanistan, at the peak, roughly 40,000 of the 130,000 troops were non-American, the majority European. Many were restricted by their own governments from engaging in combat and instead focused on reconstruction, training, base security, and logistics. British combat deaths exceeded those of 26 other EU nations combined.

The UK suffered 454 deaths, including 404 killed in action, along with 615 seriously wounded and 2,187 wounded in action, with troop levels peaking at 9,500. In total, more than 850 non-U.S. NATO personnel were killed in Afghanistan, compared to over 2,400 Americans.

The Texas National Guard alone deployed approximately 23,000 personnel to Iraq and Afghanistan, maintained 3,000 to 5,000 troops in theater each year in an almost continuous cycle from 2001 onward, held divisional-level command in both wars, and operated without national caveats restricting combat. That is a single American state’s part-time force.

European naval capacity presents the same problem at sea. Europe fields six aircraft carriers on paper, two each for the UK and Italy, one each for France and Spain, but realistically 2-3 are operational at any given time. The Royal Navy operated without a carrier from 2014 to 2021. Spain decommissioned its dedicated carrier without replacement.

The number of UK Type 23 frigates available for operations at any given time fluctuates between five and six hulls out of eight nominally in service. During the 2011 Libya operation, against a military that was not a peer adversary, European coalition members quickly exhausted their supply of naval cruise missiles.

European nuclear submarine capacity is concentrated entirely in two countries. The UK operates 10 nuclear submarines, comprising 4 Vanguard-class ballistic missile boats and 6 nuclear attack submarines, with a sixth Astute-class commissioned in 2025 and a seventh expected in 2026. France operates 10, comprising 4 Le Triomphant-class ballistic missile submarines and 6 Barracuda-class nuclear attack submarines, with all six to be delivered by 2030 and approximately 4-5 currently operational.

Every other European country operates zero nuclear submarines. Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Denmark, and Portugal rely entirely on conventional diesel-electric boats that must surface or snorkel regularly, have limited range, and cannot sustain prolonged open-ocean operations. Europe’s total operational nuclear submarine force is approximately 18-20 vessels, split between two countries. The US Navy alone operates more than 50 nuclear submarines.

Even if Europe had the submarines, aircraft carriers, manpower, weapons, and munitions to take on Russia, European defense continues to depend on American logistics, intelligence, satellites, and nuclear deterrence. In short, Europe doesn’t stand a chance against Russia without U.S. backing.

Europe is making political decisions that increase the probability of conflict with a military power it cannot independently confront. With Orbán gone, there is no longer an institutional mechanism inside the EU to slow that process down.

The post With Hungary’s Orbán Gone, Europe May Escalate in Ukraine, Triggering a War Without U.S. Backing appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, a 125-year-old non-profit order, filed a lawsuit on April 6, 2026, challenging a New York state law requiring long-term care facilities to base pronouns, room assignments, and restroom use on gender identity. Liberals claim conservatives reject biology, but laws forcing the assertion that men can become women because they “identify” as such represent a direct attack on reality, science, and religion.

The Bible is unambiguous on the question. Genesis 1:27 states, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them,” and Deuteronomy 22:5 states, “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.”

Science is equally unambiguous. Men have XY chromosomes, male genitalia, and male reproductive organs, while women have XX chromosomes, female genitalia, and female reproductive organs. Chromosomal sex is established at fertilization and is present in every cell of the body, where it cannot be changed by surgery, hormones, or legal declaration. A biological male cannot become pregnant, and a biological female cannot father a child. This is why medical records based on biological sex are clinically necessary, as chromosomal reality affects every system in the body.

The Dominican Sisters run Rosary Hill Home in Hawthorne, New York, a 42-bed facility providing free skilled nursing care to indigent cancer patients in their final days. The sisters accept no insurance or government funds and charge patients nothing, relying entirely on private donors.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Governor Kathy Hochul and the state Department of Health. The law, the LGBTQ Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights, requires nursing homes to assign patient rooms based on gender identity even over a roommate’s objection, use preferred pronouns including when the patient is not present, allow restroom access based on gender identity, and post public notices of compliance.

The state sent the sisters three “Dear Administrator Letters” in March 2024, October 2024, and January 2025, notifying them of their obligation to comply. The sisters stated they have not complied, and do not intend to.

The law applies to all licensed nursing homes in New York State, with the trigger being the state license to operate rather than the receipt of state funding. Courts have generally allowed the government to attach conditions to public funding, but applying mandates to private religious organizations that take no public funds is a significantly harder legal argument for the state, and more likely to be seen as direct infringement on religious freedom and free speech. New York granted an exemption to facilities run by the Church of Christ, Scientist, but not to Catholic institutions.

During a four-year reporting period, Rosary Hill Home received zero complaints from residents, compared to more than 55,000 complaints against other New York nursing homes over the same period. The sisters’ lawyer, L. Martin Nussbaum, noted that in over 125 years the sisters have never once had a patient seeking to transition, making the mandate a case of the state requiring the sisters to be trained in an ideology entirely contrary to Catholic belief despite no practical basis for the requirement.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare the mandate a violation of the sisters’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and to block enforcement while the case proceeds.

The First Amendment protects not only the right to speak but the right not to be compelled to say things one disagrees with. In 303 Creative v. Elenis (2023), the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado could not force a Christian web designer to create websites celebrating same-sex marriages, holding that compelling someone to speak a message that violates their beliefs is unconstitutional even when the state frames it as an anti-discrimination measure.

In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), the Court established that religious exercise extends to how an organization operates, not just what it professes. In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021), the Court ruled unanimously that the city could not exclude Catholic Social Services from its foster care program over its religious beliefs, with the Court specifically sensitive to selective exemptions, exactly the mechanism New York employed by exempting Christian Scientists while excluding Catholics.

The combination of compelled speech, selective exemption, and no public funding places the state in a weak legal position on all three fronts.

The case is also a medical integrity argument that requires no religious belief to sustain. Male and female bodies differ in hormone profiles and medication response, cardiovascular disease presentation, drug metabolism, cancer risk, bone density, immune response, and surgical anatomy.

If a hospital records a biological male as female, every downstream clinical decision, including dosing, screening, and risk assessment, is built on false data. Medical records are legal documents, and a biological male recorded as female will not be flagged for prostate screening, may receive incorrect drug dosing, and creates emergency care confusion for physicians who need accurate biological information immediately. The British Medical Journal and other peer-reviewed publications have documented cases where transgender patients received incorrect care precisely because recorded gender did not match biological sex.

Room assignment by gender identity rather than biological sex creates privacy violations for patients who did not consent to share a room with someone of the opposite biological sex, safety risks for elderly, cognitively impaired, or terminally ill patients who cannot advocate for themselves, and confusion around personal care duties that in nursing home settings involve intimate physical care.

If a care facility is legally required to treat a patient as the gender they declare, the logical endpoint has no principled stopping point. A patient declaring a different age, a different medical history, or a different diagnosis would be overruled by clinical fact. Biological sex is equally a clinical fact, and there is no coherent medical argument for treating it differently from other objective biological data.

The Dominican Sisters are right based on reality, science, and religion. However, in a liberal state like New York, the court may ignore all of that and rule against them.

The post Catholic Nuns Sue New York: Reality, Science, and Religion Are All Under Attack From the Liberal Left appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

When President Trump announced on Truth Social that the U.S. Navy would blockade “any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” he also instructed the Navy to interdict vessels that had paid tolls to Iran and to destroy mines Iran had placed in the waterway.

CENTCOM subsequently clarified the actual scope: the blockade applies to vessels entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas and does not affect ships transiting the strait to and from non-Iranian ports. The blockade is therefore a naval embargo on Iranian trade, not a closure of the strait to international shipping generally.

Trump took the action in response to Iran’s “world extortion.” The IRGC had imposed a de facto toll regime in the strait. The Tehran regime said that vessels would be required to submit documentation, obtain clearance codes, and accept IRGC-escorted passage through a single controlled corridor. Trump’s goal was to stop Iran from policing the strait and profiting from its closure while the rest of the world absorbed the economic damage.

Neither the U.S. nor Israel is dependent on oil transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Around the globe, the U.S. is the primary enforcer of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), maintaining freedom of navigation for all countries. Trump’s request for Europe and other allies to support U.S. freedom-of-navigation patrols in the Strait of Hormuz was rejected.

Europe’s argument was that the U.S. took action against Iran unilaterally and therefore could not expect European support. President Trump’s position is that the U.S. has spent trillions defending Europe and keeping sea lanes open around the globe for 70 years, and it was reasonable to ask for reciprocity.

Instead, Europe blames Trump for the Hormuz closure, completely ignoring the fact that it is the IRGC, not the U.S., that has closed the strait.

Their refusal to help reopen it is a classic example of cutting off your nose to spite your face, since Europe’s energy supplies are at stake, not America’s. However, anger at Trump is mobilizing Europe to form a coalition to protect the Strait from America rather than from Iran.

At the same time, the IRGC warned that military vessels approaching the strait would be dealt with harshly. It is unclear whether the IRGC will allow European ships to counter American vessels. Either way, we are now in an upside-down world where Europe is siding with Iran, while Iran is threatening to sink European ships.

The Western media has also stopped reporting on atrocities committed by the IRGC, including executions of protesters during this ceasefire period. The media seems to have forgotten that over the past 47 years, Tehran has supported thousands of terrorist attacks through the IRGC and its proxies. The press has also stopped focusing on the missile and drone program that is currently threatening global shipping.

Not only is the world ignoring the IRGC’s repression of women, gays, and minorities, but the UN has nominated Iran to the Committee for Program and Coordination, a body that helps shape policy on human rights, disarmament, and terrorism prevention. UN Watch reported that the United States was the only member to dissociate itself from the decision.

They are also ignoring the fact that it is illegal under international law for the IRGC to charge a toll for the use of the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, they are fighting for their “right” to buy sanctioned oil and pay an illegal toll to Tehran.

The European response contains a significant contradiction. The EU has a legal ban on importing Iranian oil, reimposed under the sanctions snapback triggered in August 2025 by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, which restored six UN Security Council resolutions covering nuclear and missile technology, arms, travel bans, asset freezes, and bans on the import, purchase, and transport of crude oil and petroleum products.

European ships cannot legally buy Iranian crude under EU law. The freedom of navigation Europe is mobilizing to defend therefore applies not to European purchasers but to third-party nations, primarily Asian buyers, transiting the strait without U.S. interdiction.

Canada, Australia, and New Zealand maintain similar frameworks, each prohibiting their citizens and entities from purchasing Iranian oil, with New Zealand adding a compulsory business registration scheme for any dealings with Iran in February 2026.

Peace talks in Islamabad collapsed after more than 21 hours of negotiations. Vice President Vance, who led the U.S. delegation, said Iran refused to commit to abandoning its nuclear ambitions.

Europe, however, now appears willing to tolerate both Iran’s nuclear program and its closure of the Strait of Hormuz, simply because Trump is taking action to resolve both problems permanently by removing the IRGC from power.

The post Hormuz Blockade: Europe Mobilizing Against the U.S., Not the Iran Regime appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), a secular advocacy organization founded in 1947, has filed two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Labor, alleging both agencies illegally withheld public records related to monthly Christian prayer services organized by their respective department heads.

The suits, filed March 23, 2026, in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., are procedural in nature and do not directly challenge the constitutionality of the prayer services.

They are the fourth and fifth FOIA lawsuits AU has filed against the Trump administration, following earlier suits against the Departments of Health and Human Services, State, and Veterans Affairs over implementation of the president’s February 2025 executive order aimed at eradicating anti-Christian bias in the federal government.

The prayer services began in May 2025, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth organized the first “Secretary’s Christian Prayer and Worship Service” during a workday at the Pentagon auditorium.

The event was broadcast live on the Department of War’s internal television network, and all department employees were invited to attend. Hegseth’s pastor, Brooks Potteiger of Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a congregation of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, delivered the first address. The services have continued monthly since.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer launched a parallel initiative at the Department of Labor in December 2025, citing Hegseth’s services as her inspiration.

At the inaugural DOL service on December 10, Chavez-DeRemer spoke of her Catholic faith and said the country would “probably need a little more prayer” as it marked its 250th year. The services have also continued monthly at Labor.

When a federal agency organizes an official event, it generates a paper trail subject to FOIA, meaning any member of the public can formally request those records.

AU submitted requests to both agencies in December 2025 seeking communications with employees, contractors, and other agencies about the services; costs; the time employees spent coordinating them; invited speakers and transcripts; and any internal complaints. Under FOIA, agencies are legally required to respond within 20 business days.

When neither agency did, AU sued to compel disclosure. The records AU is demanding almost certainly exist. Invitations were drafted and distributed, making them government records subject to FOIA.

The Pentagon auditorium requires staffing, audio-visual support, and security, all of which generate cost records. Bringing in outside speakers requires correspondence or contracts.

The services were broadcast on DOD’s internal network, which requires technical coordination that produces documentation. Any employee who filed a formal objection would have generated a complaint record.

The gap between AU’s legal argument and its public statements is worth noting. The legal basis of the current suits is entirely procedural, as agencies did not respond to records requests on time.

But AU’s public statements go further, with President and CEO Rachel Laser accusing Hegseth and Chavez-DeRemer of abusing government positions and taxpayer resources to impose religion on federal workers, and claiming that even voluntary services carry implicit coercion because employees may feel pressure to attend to appease superiors.

That coercion argument is an assertion, not an established fact. AU has not produced evidence that any employee was disciplined or penalized for not attending. A court ruling on the FOIA suits will not address it.

The FOIA suits appear to be a first step toward a more substantive constitutional challenge. However, despite its widespread use in political debate, the phrase “separation of church and state” appears nowhere in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or the Federalist Papers, and therefore has no legal standing. Consequently, claiming that a prayer service violates the separation of church and state would have no legal weight in court.

If the records reveal significant taxpayer expenditure on the services, evidence of employee pressure through official channels, or internal complaints that were ignored, that material could form the factual foundation for an Establishment Clause lawsuit. Without the records, such a case would be speculative.

The strategy of filing a FOIA request, suing when agencies do not comply, then using the documents to build a larger case, is a standard litigation approach for advocacy organizations.

Whether that larger case could succeed is another question. The Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District substantially strengthened the right of government employees to engage in personal religious expression in their official capacity. In that case, a public-school football coach who prayed on the field after games was found to be protected under the First Amendment.

A Cabinet secretary holding voluntary prayer services in a government building is on comparable or stronger legal ground. Any Establishment Clause challenge would face that precedent directly and would likely fail before the current court.

The services have continued through the U.S. military operation in Iran. At a recent Pentagon service, Hegseth read a prayer delivered by a military chaplain to troops who had captured former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro: “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.”

He told attendees that the monthly gathering was all the more fitting given what tens of thousands of Americans were doing at that moment.

The most probable outcome of the current litigation is that a court will order the agencies to produce the requested records, as courts routinely compel FOIA compliance regardless of the subject matter involved. AU will then assess whether those records support a constitutional challenge.

Any future challenge would have to rest on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits Congress from making laws respecting an establishment of religion, a significantly narrower legal standard than the phrase implies, and one the current Supreme Court has interpreted with increasing deference to religious expression.

Given the Supreme Court’s direction on religious liberty, the prayers will almost certainly continue.

The post The Phrase “Separation of Church and State” Has No Legal Standing — So Why Are They Suing? appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

President Nayib Bukele described El Salvador’s transformation as something that could not be explained by human effort alone. “Our war against poverty didn’t have a single chance. I don’t know how to explain it, more than because it was God’s hand.”

The transformation President Bukele is referring to began with crime reduction. El Salvador recorded 2,398 homicides in 2019, the year he took office.

By 2024, that number had fallen to 114, a murder rate of 1.9 per 100,000 people. Once widely considered the most violent country in the world, El Salvador is now among the safest in the region.

To achieve this, Bukele implemented the Territorial Control Plan, declared a state of exception that suspended aspects of due process, and arrested more than 96,000 gang members.

Many were imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a high-security facility equipped with cell phone jammers to prevent gang leaders from continuing to operate from inside the prison.

Improved security has led to an improved economy. Tourism has returned to the country in significant numbers. In 2019, El Salvador hosted approximately 1.7 million tourists.

By 2024, arrivals had reached 3.9 million, generating $3.5 billion in foreign revenue, an increase of roughly 129 percent. Tourism contributed about 14 percent of GDP in 2024, up from 6.4 percent five years earlier. The UN World Tourism Organization recorded a 35 percent increase in visitors in 2023 compared to 2019.

Foreign direct investment surged as well. In 2023, FDI reached $760 million, a 344 percent increase that surpassed the country’s annual average of $466 million over the previous two decades.

According to El Salvador’s Central Bank, overall poverty dropped by 5.9 percent from 2023 to 2024, reducing the number of Salvadorans living in poverty by approximately 114,000 people in a single year.

Multidimensional poverty, which measures access to health care, education, and housing rather than just income, fell from 25.1 percent in 2023 to 21.1 percent in 2024.

Bukele’s approval rating has consistently exceeded 80 percent since taking office and reached 85 percent in a May 2025 poll. He won re-election in February 2024 with nearly 85 percent of the vote, and his party captured 54 of 60 legislative seats.

He attributed the change to divine intervention, stating that “no one can doubt it… it’s evident that God works when asked with faith.” In his view, the transformation of what was once considered the most dangerous country in the world into a far more secure nation stands as “the clearest miracle.”

Bukele argued that improving a country that was already functioning would be one thing, but turning “the worst” into stability and security was something entirely different. That, he said, is what makes it “a miracle example,” emphasizing that the scale of the change goes beyond what human effort alone could achieve.

He pointed to the results themselves as proof, while also acknowledging that even those responsible for the policies cannot fully explain how it happened. “We have to confess that we don’t know how it happened,” he said, adding that if it could be fully explained, “then it’s not a miracle.”

Describing the country’s situation before the crackdown on gangs, he could just as easily have been describing Mexico or several other Latin American countries where narcos effectively control the government.

He said that, prior to his reforms, El Salvador had been governed by two competing systems: a legitimate democratic government elected by the people and a parallel structure imposed by criminal organizations. He described this second system as “the dictatorship of the gangs,” where power was enforced through violence rather than consent.

He explained that, unlike a democracy, no one could choose or vote out this criminal authority. “Whoever doesn’t want to comply gets shot,” he said, calling it “the true dictatorship that El Salvador lived through.”

According to Bukele, these gangs exercised more territorial control than the official government, which he described as incapable, corrupt, and complicit in criminal activity. While the state collected taxes, many citizens avoided or were exempt from them. In contrast, gang extortion, which they referred to as “income,” was unavoidable.

He stated that roughly 85 percent of Salvadorans were forced to pay this extortion, effectively creating a parallel tax system that covered nearly the entire country. In his view, this amounted to a de facto government imposed by criminal groups.

Bukele also described the failure of past enforcement efforts. Authorities would arrest gang members, but “the next day 101 came out,” meaning arrests were quickly offset by releases and new recruits. He added that gangs retaliated by targeting police families, discouraging law enforcement from taking action.

As a result, he said, the country functioned as what many would call a failed state. When the state cannot enforce law and order, it loses its monopoly on violence. In that vacuum, criminal organizations assume control, effectively becoming a parallel government.

For decades, liberal criminologists argued that incarceration and the threat of punishment do not deter crime, and that only addressing root causes such as poverty, inequality, and lack of opportunity could reduce violence. El Salvador has disproved that argument in real time. Bukele’s government achieved what no Western academic study ever could: near-certain arrest and lifetime imprisonment for gang activity, applied at scale across an entire country.

The result was a 95 percent reduction in homicides in five years, in a nation that remained poor throughout. Crime collapsed because the rational calculation changed.

In the West, liquor stores are robbed more frequently than banks, even though banks hold more cash and staff are instructed to comply. Despite the higher payoff, criminals are less likely to rob banks because the FBI will almost certainly catch them and a federal judge will sentence them to decades in prison.

Salvadoran gang members stopped collecting extortion from tortilla vendors for the same reason. With a near 100 percent chance of being caught and sent to a prison widely described as a living hell, criminals have decided that crime does not pay. El Salvador has proved that large-scale crime reduction is possible. It is a matter of political will.

The post A Matter of Political Will: How El Salvador Destroyed Three Decades of Liberal Criminology appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Mainstream media would have people believe that there is no support for the U.S.-Iran conflict and that the world would not be safer with the IRGC removed from power. However, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told Jake Tapper on CNN that the world is safer because of U.S. military action in Iran.

He added that, under President Trump’s leadership, U.S. strikes have significantly weakened Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, stating, “Degrading these capabilities is really, really very important for your and my safety here in the U.S., in Europe, in the Middle East.”

Across the world, protests in favor of regime change have been taking place, but mainstream media have largely ignored them. The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University noted in a March 9, 2026, analysis that VOA Persian was accused by its own staff of censoring coverage of Pahlavi. This suggested that President Trump was correct in his characterization of VOA and other government-funded media as having been co-opted by the left and no longer reporting objectively.

Three VOA staff members told The Hill that the adviser overseeing VOA’s Persian-language service, Ali Javanmardi, was excluding video and audio of protesters chanting Pahlavi’s name, silencing guests from discussing Pahlavi, and skewing coverage of Trump’s position toward the crown prince. One staffer said, “This is the kind of censorship that you would expect to see in authoritarian countries run by dictatorships.”

In March 2026, VOA journalist Ahmad Batebi, a prominent Iranian dissident, said he was fired after confronting Javanmardi about censorship. He stated that he was repeatedly told verbally that he was not allowed to include eyewitness statements supporting Pahlavi or pro-Pahlavi slogans in his reports.

Iranian diaspora media outlets, operating outside Iran and broadcasting in Persian, have been among the most consistent voices opposing the Islamic Republic and its security apparatus. Iran International, a London-based network and the most-watched Persian-language satellite channel globally, documented the IRGC’s massacre of thousands of protesters since January 2026.

In response, the regime summoned the families of exiled journalists, threatening them to pressure their family members to stop reporting negatively on the regime.

Tehran’s prosecutor ordered the seizure of assets and bank accounts of Iran International staff, alongside those of other diaspora outlets and protesters. According to Tehran regime state media, the Iranian Attorney General’s Office issued a warning to “those Iranians living abroad who in different ways sympathize, support, or cooperate with the American-Zionist (Israeli) enemy.”

In addition to framing the U.S. conflict as an attack on the Iranian people rather than on the IRGC, mainstream media have downplayed the popular support for former prince Reza Pahlavi, whom many Iranians would like to serve as an interim leader until elections can be held.

On January 9, 2026, when Reza Pahlavi issued a call for protests at a specific hour, millions of Iranians responded simultaneously and on schedule, describing it not as mere popularity but as “a successful act of political command,” marking a qualitative shift in Iran’s political dynamics.

When U.S.-Israeli strikes began on February 28, the network documented Iranians inside the country pleading directly with President Trump for protection, with rooftop chants calling for the death of the IRGC echoing across residential neighborhoods despite armed regime enforcers firing on buildings to silence them.

IranWire, a Washington, D.C.-based investigative outlet founded by Iranian journalists in exile, reported in March 2026 that the prospect of strikes on IRGC infrastructure was welcomed by those inside Iran who had watched the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) massacre their compatriots in January.

Large Iranian diaspora protests have been ongoing in London since January 2026, consistently linked to Pahlavi’s calls to action. Demonstrations on January 11 drew several thousand people, first outside the Iranian embassy and then in front of Downing Street. The February 14 London rally drew 50,000. On April 4, the Jerusalem Post reported coordinated diaspora rallies outside U.S. embassies and consulates in more than 20 countries, spanning at least 34 cities across Europe, Asia, and North America, including Paris, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Seoul, Toronto, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Pahlavi stated: “The message from hundreds of thousands of Iranians around the world is loud and clear: this is a decisive moment for our nation and the struggle for freedom.”

In Washington, D.C., Iranian Americans took to the streets supporting U.S. and Israeli strikes. Women marched with uncovered hair in defiance of Islamic Republic rules, and protesters walked dogs, both banned under the regime. A rally and march from the U.S. Congress toward the White House was held March 29, called for by Pahlavi. In London, counter-protesters facing a pro-regime march told each other “Soon in Tehran” as Iranians and Israelis danced together, with crowds shouting “Go IDF” and “Down with the Islamic Republic.” One journalist noted: “They are mainly pro-Shah, and even though Israel is bombing their country, they feel it’s bombing only the IRGC.”

On March 31, rooftop chants across Iranian residential neighborhoods called for the death of the IRGC and the Basij militia. Footage from Tehran’s Chitgar district showed a plainclothes enforcer pointing a rifle at a residential building as anti-IRGC chants rang from the upper floors, followed by gunfire. The Center for Human Rights in Iran wrote in the Washington Post: “The bombs are still falling, and the Islamic Republic’s future is uncertain, but one thing is already clear: The Iranian regime is preparing for its next war against its own citizens.”

Gratitude toward President Trump has been a recurring theme. Diaspora news media documented Iranians sending him direct appeals for intervention during the January crackdown. France 24 reported on April 9, 2026, that many Iranians who opposed the Islamic Republic had hoped U.S. attacks would lead to regime change and therefore opposed the ceasefire. One Tehran resident stated, “I am personally willing to pay any price, as long as the regime ceases to exist,” while others asked, “Why? Why did they not finish it off?”

Many Iranians described the ceasefire as a betrayal, with one writing directly to President Trump, “We asked you for help to free Iran, but not only did you not free it, you handed us a much worse country and trampled the blood of 45,000 martyrs.” Kako Aliyar, a member of the leadership committee of the Kurdish Iranian opposition party Komala, said there was “no viable alternative” to removing the Islamic regime and that the ceasefire had left the IRGC intact while executions continued.

The Iranian diaspora, including Prince Reza Pahlavi, have called for the U.S. to pursue regime change rather than a deal.

At CPAC on March 28, Pahlavi urged Trump to “stay the course,” telling the crowd: “Do not throw this crumbling regime a lifeline. Pave the way for the Iranian people to finish the job,” adding: “Millions of Iranians have called on me to lead the transition to democracy.” Iranian diaspora supporters carrying Lion and Sun flags filled the audience, chanting “Long live the king.”

The post Media Downplays NATO Endorsement and Iranian Popular Support for U.S. Strikes appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

On April 8, 2026, the U.S. Department of State authorized non-emergency embassy staff and their families to depart Abuja, citing a deteriorating security environment marked by crime, terrorism, and civil unrest. The move comes in the wake of multiple massacres of Christians during Holy Week, including on Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.

The order is an “authorized departure” rather than a mandatory evacuation, giving affected personnel the option to leave at government expense while the embassy remains open with a reduced footprint.

The Lagos consulate continues to provide routine and emergency services. The State Department also expanded its travel advisory, placing 23 of Nigeria’s 36 states under a “Level 4: Do Not Travel” designation, the highest risk category, adding Plateau, Jigawa, Kwara, Niger, and Taraba to the list. Nigeria as a whole remains at “Level 3: Reconsider Travel.”

The immediate trigger was an attack the day before the order, when gunmen struck two villages roughly 155 miles from Abuja, killing at least 20 people. The evacuation followed weeks after the U.S. military deployed MQ-9 Reaper drones to Nigeria amid fears of renewed Boko Haram insurgency, and two months after 200 U.S. troops arrived to provide training and intelligence support to Nigerian forces.

The evacuation order is the latest development in a rapidly escalating U.S.-Nigeria security relationship that began in November 2025, when President Trump warned the Nigerian government: “If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria and may very well go into that now disgraced country, guns a-blazing, to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”

President Trump concluded by stating, “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. Warning, the Nigerian government better move fast before it’s too late.”

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth backed the threat, posting: “The Department of War is preparing for action. Either the Nigerian government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”

Trump had designated Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, stating that “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria” and that “radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.” Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu rejected the characterization, saying it “does not reflect our national reality” and citing constitutional guarantees of religious freedom for all citizens.

Rather than escalating into open confrontation, the situation shifted toward a security partnership. On Christmas Day 2025, the U.S. launched strikes in northwest Nigeria, firing 16 Tomahawk missiles at sites used by extremist groups. Trump called the attack a “Christmas present” to Christians. AFRICOM stated the strikes were carried out at the request of Nigerian authorities.

Behind the scenes, Nigeria hired Washington lobbying firm DCI Group for a reported $9 million to help manage the relationship with the Trump administration. On January 22, 2026, AFRICOM Deputy Commander Lieutenant General John Brennan traveled to Abuja to launch a U.S.-Nigeria Joint Working Group, providing intelligence and training to Nigerian security forces.

On February 23, the House Appropriations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee delivered a joint report to the White House following two congressional delegations to Nigeria. The FY26 appropriations legislation withholds U.S. funding to Nigeria until action is taken to stop violence against Christians.

The report recommended a bilateral security agreement, sanctions on perpetrators, visa restrictions, and pressure to repeal sharia-based blasphemy laws. In March, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja publicly thanked Trump, calling him “the first head of state to declare clearly and unequivocally that Christians in Nigeria are being persecuted,” and called on him to provide intelligence assets and weapons.

The violence driving these developments has been building for over 16 years. Since Boko Haram’s insurgency began in 2009, civil society monitors Intersociety and Open Doors estimate between 50,000 and 125,000 Christians have been killed in targeted attacks, accounting for the majority of global faith-related Christian deaths.

In 2025 alone, more than 7,000 Christians were killed, an average of 32 to 35 per day, primarily by Boko Haram, ISWAP, and Fulani militants in the north and Middle Belt regions. Approximately 19,100 churches have been attacked, looted, burned, or forcibly closed since 2009, alongside over 4,000 Christian schools, displacing entire communities.

More than 1,100 Christian villages have been abandoned, contributing to the displacement of an estimated 12 to 40 million people. The Nigerian government has repeatedly attributed many deaths to broader banditry or ethnic conflict affecting all faiths, rather than targeted religious persecution.

The U.S. provides between $800 million and $1 billion annually in aid to Nigeria, totaling $7.8 billion from 2015 to 2024, directed primarily at health programs, security assistance against Boko Haram, and humanitarian relief. Under Trump’s aid freeze and CPC designation, obligated assistance dropped to approximately $550 million, with an additional $32.5 million in hunger aid approved in September 2025.

The April 8 evacuation order signals that, despite five months of military cooperation and diplomatic pressure, the security situation on the ground has continued to worsen. Former Nigerian presidential candidate Peter Obi called the evacuation “a clear signal of declining confidence in Nigeria’s national security architecture” and warned it should be treated as a national emergency, particularly given Nigeria’s struggle to attract foreign investment.

Nigeria currently ranks fourth on the Global Terrorism Index. The departure of U.S. diplomatic families from the capital is a development that frequently triggers similar actions from other Western nations, with cascading consequences for investment, business travel, and Nigeria’s international standing.

The post U.S. Evacuates Embassy Staff and Families in Nigeria Amid Islamist Violence Against Christians appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The UN Security Council Monitoring Team’s 37th report (S/2026/44), covering June 23 to December 15, 2025, describes the global threat from ISIS and al-Qaeda as multipolar and increasingly complex, intensifying across multiple theaters simultaneously, with no single country or region constituting the sole epicenter.

Al-Qaeda’s leadership remained cohesive but isolated. Sayf al-Adl served as de facto leader despite growing dissatisfaction among rank-and-file members. The group retained ambitions for large-scale “spectacular” external attacks aimed at global media impact. It also continued to act as a service provider and force multiplier for affiliated groups in Afghanistan, particularly Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

With senior leadership isolated, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), under leader Saad bin Atef al-Awlaki, increasingly asserted ideological and operational leadership of the broader network. AQAP’s estimated strength stood between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters. These forces were primarily located in remote areas of Yemen’s Abyan, Shabwah, Ma’rib, and Hadramawt provinces.

Between June and October, the group conducted at least 14 attacks employing weaponized drones, double suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices, vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, ambushes, and thermal-sighted sniper rifles. AQAP also explored maritime operations, including uncrewed boats, and took interest in liquid explosives.

The Houthis paid AQAP approximately $65,000 in June in exchange for an attack and participated in joint operational planning in August. Meetings in October aimed at forming a joint unit comprising Houthis, AQAP, and Al-Shabaab were reported. AQAP also profited from Al-Shabaab piracy by receiving a share of revenue from vessels paying to transit safely through high-risk waters and used encrypted platforms, including Telegram, to solicit funds and connect supporters to financial intermediaries.

West Africa and the Sahel represent the most alarming theater. JNIM (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin), al-Qaeda’s West African affiliate, continued to expand territory under its control across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger while pressing southward toward coastal states. In October 2025, JNIM carried out its first documented attack in Nigeria, killing a soldier in Kwara State near the Benin border. A new senior leader, Sekou Muslimu, was appointed to expand JNIM’s presence into Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, and Togo, with a separate emir appointed for Benin.

JNIM’s Katiba Hanifa faction targeted security forces, attacked posts, and intimidated and abducted villagers in Benin’s Alibori, Borgou, and Atacora Departments. In Mali, JNIM launched large-scale coordinated attacks on mining sites, industrial facilities operated by foreign investors, and key logistics routes. Beginning in September, JNIM implemented a fuel blockade on Bamako, mobilizing fighters along highways from Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mauritania, and Senegal and systematically destroying hundreds of fuel tankers.

The report assesses that, while JNIM lacked the capacity to overrun Bamako, the blockade was designed to force the Malian government into negotiations. Malian security forces killed several JNIM leaders, including Ridwan al-Ansari, a close associate of top JNIM leader Iyad Ag Ghali, and Abou Salam Oumarou in Soumpi, Timbuktu Region.

JNIM’s finances were described as swollen. The report notes a single ransom payment of approximately $50 million, reportedly for a Gulf royal family member abducted in September, with unconfirmed reports that prisoner releases and arms shipments were part of the deal. From May to October, JNIM nearly doubled its kidnappings of foreign nationals to 22 cases. The group raises revenue through territorial control, gold mining taxation, road tolls, livestock rustling, smuggling, and zakat collection, which the report notes can be raised to extortionate levels when communities resist. JNIM was identified as the wealthiest al-Qaeda affiliate after Al-Shabaab.

Violent incidents involving Islamist groups in the Niger-Benin-Nigeria tri-border area rose 90 percent between 2024 and 2025, and deaths more than doubled to over 1,000. Fighters aligned with al-Qaeda and ISIS deepened their presence in Benin’s Alibori and Borgou Departments, Niger’s Dosso Region, and Nigeria’s Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, and Kwara States.

Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) carried out more than 500 attacks between January and October 2025 in Borno State, with drone attacks rising from one in 2024 to seven. ISWAP reinforced its bases in Gargash and Sambisa with approximately 100 additional fighters each following specialized training and elevated Sambisa to the status of a formal ISIS administrative province headed by a wali, signaling a shift toward territorial governance. Active ISWAP cells operated in Kogi, Zamfara, Sokoto, and Katsina States, as well as Cameroon’s Far North, Niger’s Diffa Region, and Lake Chad’s Lac Province.

Following the death of ISIS deputy leader Abu Khadija in Iraq in March 2025, Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Ali al-Mainuki, head of the al-Furqan office in West Africa, assumed a more prominent role in global ISIS leadership, with some Member States suggesting he may have become head of ISIS’s General Directorate of Provinces.

The resurgence of Ansarul Muslimina fi Biladis Sudan (Ansaru) was documented in Nigeria, with bases in Kwara and Niger States collaborating with JNIM. The Lakurawa group, linked to Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, gained a foothold in northwest Nigeria through illegal tax collection and cattle rustling.

Islamic State in the Greater Sahara remained active in Niger’s Tillabéri, Tahoua, and Dosso Regions, with ISGS and JNIM clashing between August and October in Yagha Province, Burkina Faso, and in Tillabéri and Ménaka over territorial dominance, ending a détente established earlier in 2025.

Across all theaters, both ISIS and al-Qaeda expanded their use of commercial satellite communications, enabling cheap, fast, and secure communication in remote areas. Both organizations demonstrated greater proficiency with artificial intelligence in propaganda, using AI-enhanced translation tools for rapid multilingual content deployment.

The Cyber Jihad Movement pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda’s Sayf al-Adl in August, potentially expanding al-Qaeda’s cyber capabilities.

In Canada, nearly one in ten terrorism investigations included at least one person under the age of 18. In Indonesia, 110 minors were recruited through gaming platforms, including Discord and Roblox, in 2025. In Tunisia, ISIS prioritized online recruitment of minors, recruiting over 30 youths during the year.

ISIS propaganda showed a clear shift toward Central Africa, with references to Mozambique and targeting of Christian communities increasing in Al-Naba over the reporting period, while references to Nigeria and Cameroon declined. ISWAP expected delivery of 25 drones from parties in Sudan in September 2025 for reconnaissance and offensive operations. ISIS’s Al-Karrar office in Somalia generated approximately $360,000 a month, facilitating transfers to branches worldwide through mobile money platforms, hawala, and money laundering.

The post Islamic Extremism Rising Worldwide: Leadership, Financing, and a Growing Threat Network appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Pro-CCP accounts on social media are spreading deliberate disinformation: “China’s SUVs all have TVs, refrigerators, freezers, chair massagers, and now they can charge in 9 minutes and have range extenders. All for in the $20k range. We are being so played by the oil and auto industries. Bubbles about to be bursting all over this country.”

Every major claim in this post is misleading or outright false.

The amenities cited, TVs, refrigerators, and massaging seats, have existed in vehicles since the vans and luxury cars of the 1970s. They are not innovations. Today, they exist in SUVs worldwide and are not limited to China. Nor are they standard across Chinese models. These extras are available only on select models, and they increase the cost.

Even the term “freezer” is an exaggeration; these are mini-fridges. Chinese EVs at the 2025 Shanghai Auto Show did include models with these features, for example, the Deepal S09 at $33,000 and XPeng’s flagship sedan at $29,000 before subsidies, but at those price points, comparable luxury features exist in vehicles from every major auto-producing nation.

More critically, in a battery-powered vehicle, every accessory draws from the same finite energy source that moves the car. Running a refrigerator, TV, and seat massagers reduces battery range and requires more frequent charging, unlike in a gas vehicle, where the engine runs independently of accessories.

The claim of a 9-minute charge is real but narrowly applicable. BYD launched the Song Ultra EV in March 2026, priced from $21,000, capable of charging from 10% to 97% in 9 minutes, but only using BYD’s own proprietary megawatt flash chargers running at 1.5 MW. Standard chargers cannot do this. BYD had built only 5,000 of these stations as of early 2026, with a target of 20,000 by the end of the year, meaning coverage remains limited inside China and nonexistent elsewhere.

Home charging cannot deliver fast charging. It is slow charging by definition, overnight, with standard voltage. The 9-minute charge requires a specific vehicle and a specific proprietary station, and it carries the highest per-kWh cost of any charging option.

The home charging option is unavailable to most Chinese EV owners. China’s urbanization rate is around 65%, and the overwhelming majority of urban Chinese live in high-rise apartment buildings with shared parking. China had 345.7 million registered vehicles by the end of 2024 but total parking capacity of only 190 million spaces, meaning China faces a severe parking shortage. Equipping those 190 million spaces with chargers at a conservative $2,000 per unit would cost a minimum of $380 billion, for a country with a nominal per-capita income of roughly $13,500.

That figure excludes grid upgrades, which would represent a substantial cost. The existing electrical grid in most Chinese residential areas was not designed to handle simultaneous charging across hundreds of vehicles per building, requiring transformer upgrades building by building across the entire country.

It also excludes ongoing maintenance, periodic hardware replacement as technology evolves, and the environmental cost of manufacturing the copper wiring, steel housing, circuit components, and rubber cabling required for each unit.

In the United States, with roughly 325 million residential parking spaces, the equivalent calculation produces a minimum of $650 billion for residential installation alone, before touching commercial or public spaces.

The range-extender claim also undermines the underlying argument behind all electric vehicles, that they can replace cars that run on fossil fuels. The Geely Galaxy M9 uses a gas engine as a generator to charge the battery or power the wheels directly, achieving an estimated 808 miles of total range, only 130 of which are purely electric. The fact that Chinese automakers are embedding gasoline engines into their most capable EVs to make them practical is proof that fossil fuels remain the most reliable power source.

Chinese EV prices are only so low because of massive government subsidies and state-controlled supply chains. Edmunds noted that the Geely M9, starting at $25,000 in China, would cost $50,000–$60,000 in the U.S. BYD itself reported a 30% drop in domestic sales in Q1 2026, reflecting structural oversupply problems in the Chinese EV market.

The $20,000 price point, meanwhile, represents almost two years’ average salary in China ($13,000/year) in nominal terms. Top-end Chinese SUVs reach $50,000, roughly four years’ salary.

Finally, the “clean energy” framing of electric vehicles collapses on its own terms. Coal accounts for approximately 66% of China’s electricity generation, but that is only part of the story. Fossil fuels combined account for approximately 80–85% of all energy consumed in the country, with transportation running almost entirely on oil outside the electrical grid.

Converting vehicles to electric does not eliminate fossil fuel consumption; it relocates it to power stations that predominantly burn coal. Fully electrifying China’s vehicle fleet would require expanding electricity generation by approximately 10–12% above current levels, at a cost of hundreds of billions in additional grid infrastructure, on top of the $84.7 billion China already invested in grid expansion in 2024 alone.

Chinese EVs are not clean vehicles. They are coal-powered vehicles with a battery in the middle. They are not $20,000, and they do not charge in 9 minutes. Electrifying all vehicles in China or the US would be impossible, and attempting to do so would be an environmental disaster.

The post The Lies Surrounding China’s SUVs: Not All Fast Charging, Not $20K, and Cannot Eliminate Fossil Fuel appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been nominated to the U.N. Committee for Program and Coordination, which shapes policy on women’s rights, human rights, disarmament, and terrorism prevention. The nomination was backed by ECOSOC members, including the UK, Spain, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland, Austria, and Finland.

This is part of a broader pattern. In February 2026, an Iranian regime official took her seat as a full member of the UN Human Rights Council’s Advisory Committee, contributing to discussions on gender perspectives and gender-based violence, while Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister addressed the council’s high-level opening session.

Iran was previously removed from a comparable body in 2022, when ECOSOC voted 29 to 8 to remove it from the Commission on the Status of Women following its violent crackdown on protesters after the death of Mahsa Amini. It is now being nominated back onto similar bodies.

Iran has no standing to shape global policy on women’s rights. The country executed 65 women in 2025, up from 34 in 2024, 26 in 2023, and 15 in 2022, the highest number of women’s executions recorded in 25 years, with nine more executed in the first two months of 2026. During the January 2026 protests, at least 250 women were killed by government forces using live ammunition, and 207 cases of femicide were recorded across Iran in 2025.

The UN’s own Special Rapporteur on Iran has described the country as maintaining a system of gender apartheid, enforced through the Chastity and Hijab Law, which criminalizes women’s dress through 71 articles, imposes fines and prison terms, and empowers intelligence agencies to surveil and punish women in public life. The legal age of marriage for girls remains 13, with younger girls eligible for marriage with a father’s approval.

Iran’s record on human rights is no less disqualifying. By the end of December 2025, Iran had executed over 2,000 people, the highest known number of executions since the late 1980s, with more than half for drug offenses in violation of international law and with women and ethnic minorities increasingly targeted.

In January 2026, security forces carried out mass killings of protesters amid a nationwide internet and telecommunications shutdown, with independent monitors verifying over 6,000 fatalities. At least six juvenile offenders were executed in 2025, in direct violation of Iran’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Hundreds of lawyers, journalists, human rights defenders, and religious minorities remain arbitrarily detained.

On terrorism, Iran has been designated the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism by the United States since 1984. The IRGC is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Ukraine, and more than a dozen other countries.

Through the IRGC and its Quds Force, Iran funds, arms, and directs Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, and multiple Iraqi militias, while conducting direct attacks against U.S. military personnel, Israeli targets, and dissidents on foreign soil.

On disarmament, Iran has pursued a covert nuclear program, developed long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching Europe, and supplied Shahed drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. In August 2025, a senior IRGC commander stated publicly that Iran has been developing long-range missiles for two decades, capable of reaching Europe and potentially targeting U.S. assets.

During the 64th session of the UN Commission for Social Development, held February 2–10, 2026, Iran’s Abbas Tajik was elected vice-chair of the 65th session without objection, as the commission prepared to focus on democracy, gender equality, tolerance, and non-violence, four areas in which Iran’s record is among the worst in the world.

Iran is a theocratic authoritarian state with no free elections, no independent judiciary, and no permitted political opposition. It executes religious minorities, detains journalists, lawyers, and human rights defenders, and suppresses ethnic minority populations, while funding and directing Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and multiple militant proxy networks across the region.

Several structural factors explain how Iran secures these nominations. The UN operates through regional group nominations, and Iran, as a member of the Asian group, can obtain a nomination simply by being present and active within that bloc, regardless of its conduct. Those nominations are typically rubber-stamped.

The ECOSOC members who backed Iran’s nomination included Western democracies that simultaneously designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization, a contradiction that reflects diplomatic horse-trading in which countries support each other’s nominees in exchange for reciprocal support with no regard for whether the nominee is appropriate.

Some Western governments have also historically believed that keeping Iran inside multilateral institutions preserves a channel for negotiation, particularly on the nuclear file. Beyond that, the UN has no mechanism requiring that a country’s domestic conduct align with the mandate of the committee it joins.

Membership is a political process, not a merit-based one. Iran also pursues these seats strategically, as membership confers legitimacy, intelligence on other nations’ positions, and the ability to obstruct proceedings from within.

In each of the areas covered by these committees, Iran is among the world’s worst active offenders. Its nomination is a demonstration of how the UN’s regional bloc system can be exploited to place the most egregious violators in positions of authority over the norms they systematically destroy.

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Democrats are attacking Secretary of State Marco Rubio for canceling the legal status of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani’s family members. Critics claim he abused his authority. However, they were outspoken supporters of the Iranian regime. Rubio has pointed out many times during his career that, under the law, supporters of terrorist organizations should not have visas.

Soleimani’s niece and grand-niece were arrested by federal agents following Rubio’s termination of their lawful permanent resident status. Hamideh Soleimani Afshar entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2015, received asylum in 2019, and became a lawful permanent resident in 2021. Her daughter entered on a student visa in July 2015, received asylum in 2019, and became a green card holder in 2023. In a 2025 naturalization application, Afshar disclosed multiple return trips to Iran after receiving her green card, which DHS cited as evidence that her asylum claim was fraudulent.

The State Department accused her of promoting Iranian regime propaganda, celebrating attacks against American soldiers and military facilities in the Middle East, praising the new Iranian Supreme Leader, denouncing America as the “Great Satan,” and voicing support for the IRGC, a designated terrorist organization. The State Department identified her conduct through both press reporting and her own social media commentary on her Instagram account, which she deleted after her arrest.

Both women are being held at a South Texas ICE detention facility awaiting a deportation hearing.

Rubio also revoked the visas of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, an academic and daughter of Iran’s former national security adviser Ali Larijani, who was killed in a U.S.-Israel airstrike, and her husband Seyed Kalantar Motamedi. Both are no longer in the United States and are barred from future entry.

Ardeshir-Larijani had worked in oncology at Emory University School of Medicine. After Iran initiated a crackdown against anti-government protesters in December and January, demonstrators gathered at the university’s cancer institute to demand her removal. As of January, she was no longer employed by Emory.

A Change.org petition calling for her deportation gathered 157,017 signatures. In early December, the State Department revoked or declined to renew visas of several Iranian diplomats, including the deputy ambassador and staffers at Iran’s UN mission, confirming the action was taken on December 4 but declining to comment further.

Republican Congressman Earl “Buddy” Carter called for Ardeshir-Larijani’s State medical license to be revoked, writing that America’s medical institutions must not serve as a refuge for individuals connected by blood and loyalty to regimes that openly call for the death of Americans. Trump ally Laura Loomer wrote on social media that she had reported Soleimani’s niece to the State Department.

The legal basis for the revocations draws on three overlapping provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

INA § 237(a)(4)(C)(i) authorizes the deportation of a lawful permanent resident if the Secretary of State determines that the individual’s presence would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences. Rarely invoked before September 11, 2001, the provision was strengthened by the USA PATRIOT Act. A 1999 Board of Immigration Appeals precedent, Matter of Ruiz-Massieu, established that the Secretary’s formal determination alone satisfies the clear and convincing evidence standard required to prove deportability.

INA § 212(a)(3)(C), the foreign policy ground of inadmissibility, applies when the government believes a person’s presence could have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences. Its use to revoke green cards has been described as exceedingly rare.

Presidential Proclamation 10998, issued under INA § 212(f) and effective January 1, 2026, fully suspended entry and visa issuance for Iranian nationals. Iran is also among 23 countries subject to a separate pause on immigrant visa issuance effective January 21, 2026.

USCIS Policy Memoranda PM-602-0192 and PM-602-0194 placed an indefinite hold on pending immigration benefits for citizens of fully banned countries. This effectively closed off the adjustment-of-status pathway for Iranians already inside the United States.

The INA contains a First Amendment safeguard providing that no noncitizen may be removed solely because of beliefs, speech, or associations that would be lawful in the United States. To override this protection, the Secretary of State must personally certify that the individual’s presence would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest, a higher standard than the general “seriously adverse” threshold.

In the Soleimani family case, Rubio grounded the action not only in speech but in Afshar’s fraudulent asylum claim, established by her documented return trips to Iran, and in her support for the IRGC, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

The State Department did not specify the precise legal process used to terminate the LPR status. It did not confirm whether an administrative hearing preceded the revocation or clarify whether the women could contest the action in immigration court. Under INA § 212(a)(3)(C)(iv), the Secretary of State is required to report all foreign-policy-based visa denials to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee within 30 days. Whether Rubio has fulfilled that requirement in these cases has not been publicly confirmed.

Human rights organizations argued that the approach risks targeting individuals with no direct connection to the Iranian government and raises due process concerns. The Iranian government described the revocations as vindictive and as collective punishment. The State Department stated on April 4, 2026, that the Trump administration “will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes.”

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The jizya is a tax historically levied on non-Muslims living under Muslim rule, understood as a fee for protection, exemption from military service, and permission to practice a non-Muslim faith. Historically, jizya was imposed by Muslim countries across the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa, and Central Asia, a practice that has been abolished in most Muslim nations.

With the exception of Taliban-governed Afghanistan, no internationally recognized nation-state in the Islamic world currently imposes jizya by name or in formal legal code. However, it is being actively imposed today by jihadist groups operating as de facto governing authorities across West Africa, Central Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East.

The most well-documented active cases are in Mali and the broader Sahel, where JNIM (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin), an al-Qaeda affiliate, controls large rural areas beyond the reach of the Malian government. In August 2024, church leaders in the Dougouténé area of southern Mali were summoned to a meeting with JNIM militants and given new rules the entire community was required to follow.

The group subsequently imposed a tax of 25,000 CFA francs, roughly $40 to $41, on all Christians over the age of 18 in Douna-Pen, the largest Christian village in eastern Koro, Mopti. Payment was set as a condition for the free practice of religion. Those unable or unwilling to pay were warned their churches would be closed. Militants collected the money openly and without resistance.

The practice began in Dougouténé and spread to Douna-Pen, with local sources warning that more communities would face the same demands. In the La Tapoa region near the Niger–Burkina Faso border, jihadists announced that all males 15 and older who refused to convert must pay jizya, with Christians told they would “live as slaves” if they paid.

Open Doors analysts assess that these cases are not isolated but part of a wider plan, with families who refuse or cannot pay being driven from ancestral lands. One Christian told Aid to the Church in Need, “We are supposed to be living in a secular state, where such practices should not take place, but unfortunately this is becoming our new reality.”

The 25,000 CFA franc monthly payment represents more than half the monthly income for many families in one of the world’s poorest countries.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), operating as ISIS’s Central Africa Province (ISCAP), has imposed jizya as part of a documented campaign against Christian communities. Around late 2022, ISIS’s Al-Naba newsletter first began imploring Congolese Christians to pay jizya to be spared from ISCAP violence. By June 2025, the group was presenting Christians in Ituri Province with three choices during preaching campaigns: conversion to Islam, payment of jizya, or death.

An August 2025 Al-Naba editorial stated: “If the Christians of Africa want to feel safe and escape the cycle of killing, then they must know that our true Islam provides them the freedom to choose between three options,  Islam, jizya paid humiliated and subdued, or death and displacement.”

These options were repeated in videos published on YouTube and TikTok in Swahili, Lingala, and French by ISCAP ideologue Zakaria Banza Souleymane, known as Bonge La Chuma. Locals and ISCAP defectors confirmed to Bridgeway Foundation personnel that the group systematically gathered farmers to register and tax their access to fields while requiring attendance at Islamic lectures. An ISIS December 2025 article warned that fighters would continue to slaughter Congolese Christians who refuse to pay, framing the violence as permitted by Islamic law.

The UN report assessed ADF at approximately 2,000 members, including families and dependents, with 600 to 700 active fighters. ADF leader Musa Baluku was located in Madina camp in Epulu National Park, Mambasa Territory, Ituri Province. The report states that ADF enjoys complete freedom of operation within its designated area, as M23’s occupation of key cities has diverted Congolese military resources.

The report names Abu Waqas, listed as Ahmad Mahmood Hassan, as responsible for 300 deaths in and around Lubero Territory since June 2025 alone, including the massacre of 50 churchgoers at a church in Oicha and 70 mourners at a funeral in Ntuyo village in August and September, respectively. ADF has adapted to satellite communications as a force multiplier, enabling fighters to transmit propaganda directly to ISIS central media from the bush and to convert cryptocurrency into mobile money without access to conventional cellular networks.

In Pakistan, TTP and Lashkar-e-Islam have applied jizya in tribal border areas where state authority is absent. In 2009, TTP forced the Sikh community in the Peshawar region to pay after occupying their homes and kidnapping a Sikh leader. Christians, Hindus, and Sikhs in villages along the northern Afghan-Pakistani border,  including Bara, Chora, Karamna, and the Tirah Valley in the Khyber Agency, have been collectively required to pay jizya, with some Sikh families in Feroze Khel forced to pay 20 million rupees. In Orakzai, TTP took over stores and houses owned by Sikhs. Some families paid while others abandoned their homes and the area rather than comply.

ISIS imposed jizya on Christians in Raqqa in 2014, the city it controlled as its de facto capital, and summoned Christian leaders in Mosul to negotiate payments. Hudson Institute scholar Nina Shea documented that imposition of jizya by ISIS consistently preceded dispossession, violence, rape, murder, kidnapping, and enslavement. Experts note ISIS imposed jizya even on Muslims, which Islamic law strictly forbids, reflecting financial desperation rather than doctrinal consistency.

ISIS’s territorial caliphate collapsed in 2019, but its provincial affiliates in the DRC, West Africa, and Mozambique continue the practice. The debate over whether Coptic Christians should pay jizya has also surfaced periodically in Egypt since the 1980s.

From August 2025, Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh reportedly began collecting jizya from Hindus and other religious minorities following a political transition that brought increased radical Islamic influence.

Of the several groups currently imposing jizya on Christians and other non-Muslims, the most expansionist and dangerous are ADF/ISCAP and ISIS and its affiliates. ADF/ISCAP poses a regional threat, while ISIS and its affiliates are expanding not only across Africa and the Middle East but also into South Asia, Europe, and the United States.

In this context, jizya serves multiple purposes. First, it pressures poor populations to convert to Islam if they cannot afford to pay, which in turn creates a larger recruitment base for extremist armies. Second, it generates revenue that is used to fund expansion.

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