Massive Escalation: Iran Sends Large Ballistic Missile Salvo On Jordan Bases, After US Strikes Iranian Oil Tankers

Summary

US Strikes Iran: US forces reportedly hit Iranian oil tankers near Kharg Island and Jask.

Iran Targets US Ships & Jordan: Iran reportedly launched another attack on US naval assets, though no American ships were hit, say US officials. Ballistic missiles raining down on Jordan overnight.

Oil Near $100: Brent crude surged as tensions threaten Iranian exports and the Strait of Hormuz.

Houthis Hit Saudi Arabia: Ballistic missiles and drones struck Saudi energy and military targets, causing fires and operational disruptions.

Yemen War Escalates: Saudi airstrikes resumed as Saudi-backed forces vowed to retake Sanaa, raising fears of wider regional spillover.

Iranian Missiles Raining Down on US Bases in Jordan: Reports

State Tasnim reports: Iran has launched missiles at targets in response to US strikes, while unofficial sources cited by Tasnim noted that explosions were heard in Jordan following Iranian missile attacks.

The below brief recap shows this new flare-up and tit-for-tat came in rapid succession… Senior US officials to FOX:

US military has struck targets near Kharg Island and Jask. The targets include Iranian oil tankers. This is part of a larger effort to squeeze Iran economically. The strategy includes sinking and disabling Iranian crude oil tankers. -FOX

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houthis-pummel-southwest-saudi-arabia-ballistic-missiles-yemen-air-ground-war-erupts

Full statement from CENTCOM:

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers, Sept. 8, after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the past two days.

The U.S. warship successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks and continued to patrol regional waters. No American personnel were harmed.

In response to Iran’s most recent failed attacks, CENTCOM destroyed the IRGC crude oil carriers M/T Kaviz, M/T Charminar, M/T Horizon 1, and M/T Riesco in the Gulf of Oman as well as M/T Derya near Kharg Island.

American forces directed the crews to abandon ship before the vessels were struck and rendered inoperable.

Iran has used the tankers as part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC and its regional proxies. Iran has no means by which to defend these vessels.

On Sept. 5, CENTCOM forces destroyed three Iranian crude oil carriers after the IRGC tried to attack a U.S. aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyer. All IRGC attempts against U.S. Navy warships have failed.

https://rumble.com/embed/v7d2z9m/?pub=4

Meta launches AI agent that can access other apps to send emails, make payments

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's plan to supply "personal superintelligence" is part of an attempt to diversify the company's revenue sources beyond advertising.

Meta rolled out on Tuesday a long-touted AI assistant that can autonomously send emails, sell a car, and book travel on a person's behalf, despite internal concerns that the technology mismanages its access to sensitive personal data.

The company's Muse agent, known internally as Hatch, is the centerpiece of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's plan to supply "personal superintelligence" to the billions of people who use Meta's services daily.

That plan is part of the Facebook and Instagram owner's latest attempt to diversify its revenue sources beyond advertising and build a viable business out of its enormous investments in AI chips and other infrastructure, which it forecasts will exceed $130 billion this year.

The product will be available only in the US initially, via a dedicated Muse app or Meta's WhatsApp messaging service, the company said in its announcement. Meta said it plans to add the agent to its line of smart glasses "soon," without elaborating.

A basic version of the agent will be available for free, while Meta will offer subscriptions priced at $20 a month and $100 a month for heavier usage, a company spokesperson said.

People can opt out of their interactions being used to train Meta's AI models, and the company plans to introduce an encrypted version of Muse later this year, it said.

Raising stakes for safety

Modeled on the open-source AI agent OpenClaw, Muse is designed to access a person's apps across categories like email, calendar, payments, health, shopping and the smart home, Meta said. People choose which apps it connects to and can revoke access at any time.

Each Muse agent runs on its own virtual machine, a cloud-based emulation of a personal computer, which enables it to keep carrying out requests in the background even when a person is not actively using it.

Syncing up with apps containing a person's real data both increases the agent's potential usefulness and significantly raises the stakes for safety, both for the people who have entrusted it with their information and for others who may be on the receiving end of agent misbehavior.

Vishal Shah, vice president of AI products at Meta, told Reuters the company had initially delayed the release of the product in April to make it more secure. Meta determined the extra work had allowed it to "cross the threshold" and "hit the minimum bar we needed to, to be able to put this into the hands of people," he said.

"It is impossible to say that there is never going to be a mistake, but every single part of the architecture has been designed to make this as safe, as secure, as private as we can possibly make it," Shah said.

Among the protections Meta built into the Muse system is a separate agent that monitors planned actions and, in certain cases, prompts Muse to seek authorization before carrying them out, the company said in its announcement.

Internal tests reveal mixed results

However, as recently as this week, Meta employees testing the tool have reported mixed results, according to internal posts seen by Reuters.

One person wrote that the product had been so useful in arranging vacation logistics that Muse had become "the third participant" on a recent three-week honeymoon in Indonesia.

Others flagged serious security flaws, like an agent routing around guardrails to expose a person's personal iCloud photos after being prompted to identify toys visible in pictures from a child's birthday party.

Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth posted that he kept getting logged out and needing to log back in, sometimes several times within a few minutes.

https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/article-908010

Gloating about terrorism!

Mossad's best operation ever? From walkie-talkies to beepers to the Hezbollah takedown - exclusive

Mossad’s pager operation blindsided Hezbollah, stunned Washington, and exposed years of Israeli planning behind one of the most audacious intelligence operations in modern history.

At 3:30 p.m. on September 17, 2024, pagers began to beep and buzz in Beirut and all over Lebanon, alerting Hezbollah operatives to a message from their commanders. But the message was not from Hassan Nasrallah or anyone else in the terrorist organization. Within less than ten seconds, the pagers would explode, sending Hezbollah, Lebanon, Iran, and even the White House into a panic.

Before anyone knew what was happening, the blasts had Hezbollah terrorists flying off their motorcycles or collapsing onto the floors of supermarkets, writhing in pain as a bizarre smoke belched upward from their pockets, belts, or fingers. From the sounds of the blasts and the fright that followed, it became clear that a massive sabotage operation was under way.

The beeper bombing killed or wounded some three thousand five hundred Hezbollah operatives. Between two and four children were killed, and there were some other civilians hurt, but what stood out to most observers was the attack’s accuracy.

“This was the most impressive supply-chain operation in modern intelligence history, and maybe forever,” General David Petraeus, a former CIA director, told us. For an operation of its size, harming so many Hezbollah operatives and so few others, the targeting was unprecedented. “Usually,” Prime Minister Netanyahu noted to us, “the guys who get beepers were important—command-and-control positions. That’s why they need the beepers.”

As Hezbollah tried to find its bearings and switch its method of communication the next day, a similar wave of exploding walkie-talkies, cell phones, and other devices wounded another five hundred or so terrorist operatives. What was going on? This was an astonishing reversal for Hezbollah, which only a day before had viewed itself as enjoying a substantial measure of impunity by virtue of the size of its rocket arsenal. It thought it had deterred Israel.

Back at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv, ten minutes before the pagers were due to go off, everyone was on edge. In the spy agency’s state-of-the-art situation room, plasma screens waited for satellite video feeds to stream real-time updates from on the ground. If the pager operation failed, it could cause a collapse in confidence in the Mossad. So much money, so many years, and such great expectations had been poured into the project. If something went wrong, would Israel’s vaunted intelligence service plunge the country into its most costly war since the fight for independence?

Even a few minutes after the beepers started to explode, the Mossad didn’t yet know how successful the operation was going to be. There was no remote-tracking method to follow what was happening. Mossad Director David Barnea, a famously cool operator, was feeling the heat.

It was only as media reports started to arrive of beeper attacks not only in Beirut, but deep into Lebanon, in the Hezbollah stronghold of the Bekaa Valley, that the Mossad operatives allowed themselves to exhale. The project seemed to be succeeding; Hezbollah had been dealt a thunderous blow. “We had a surprise prepared,” Netanyahu told us with a grin. “They didn’t know what hit them.”

Israel informed White House of the operation, but barely

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-907957

From security chiefs to Arab leaders: All the warnings Netanyahu received before October 7

Probe into Netanyahu’s call with UAE president adds to red flags raised before October 7; witnesses describe him as 'bored and indifferent,' from 'Jericho Wall' and rejected invasion plans to intelligence letters and warnings from Egypt and UAE

The warning that the president of the United Arab Emirates reportedly conveyed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a week and a half before the October 7 massacre joins a long list of warnings that reached Israel's political and security leadership in the months and years before the attack.

According to a report in Haaretz on Tuesday, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan warned Netanyahu that he had received verified information indicating that Yahya Sinwar was planning a major operation against Israel. The call lasted about 45 minutes, but according to the report, the warning was not shared with the heads of Israel's security establishment.

The revelation joins the 'Jericho Wall' document, warnings from the Military Intelligence Directorate and statements by former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and opposition leader Yair Lapid, all issued months or even years before the Hamas attack. Yet despite the accumulation of warnings, the most extreme scenario became reality on October 7.

'Jericho Wall' — and the invasion plans postponed twice

In the spring of 2022, the IDF received the 'Jericho Wall' plan, a critical document warning of an attack that reached senior defense officials. The document, accompanied by a presentation and based on detailed intelligence, described with considerable accuracy the Hamas attack that ultimately took place on October 7.

ynet also revealed that at a secret General Staff meeting on July 27, 2022, led by then-Operations Division chief Brig. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, who was commander of the Southern Command on the day of the attack, orders were given to prepare for war with Hamas based on 'Jericho Wall' — but nothing was done.

At that meeting, Finkelman concluded that Hamas would be able to achieve surprise only by disguising an attack as a military exercise or because of a mistaken assessment that it was raising its alert level in anticipation of an Israeli strike.

ynet further revealed last November that in the hours before the Hamas invasion, Finkelman himself fell victim to the same deception tactics he had warned about in his previous post. During a telephone situation assessment at 3 a.m., he raised those same two dangerous possibilities while discussing Hamas' heightened alert level.

Hamas had planned to carry out the same invasion plan during the Jewish holiday season in the fall of 2022 and again on the night of the Passover Seder in 2023, when IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi chose to stay overnight at the Kissufim outpost — without Hamas knowing he was there.

Hamas ultimately called off the attacks in order to complete preparations for its elite Nukhba force. Halevi himself learned about 'Jericho Wall' only two weeks after the war began, despite having served during the previous decade as head of Military Intelligence, commander of the Southern Command and deputy chief of staff.

According to the investigation, the reason Hezbollah did not join the fighting was apparently a misunderstanding between the group and Hamas during advance coordination carried out in July 2023.

Finkelman's summary of the 2022 meeting stated: "At its core, the 'Jericho Wall' plan represents a transition to a large-scale offensive effort inside Israeli territory as part of Hamas' lessons from previous events."

He said that if the ideas were implemented even partially, there was "significant potential for damage." According to the summary, the Operations Division chief gave the plan the appropriate weight and understood that Hamas was undergoing a strategic change.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bydpcbaufg

Additional footage of a PATRIOT battery conducting a massive ballistic missile engagement over Jordan tonight.

Well over a dozen interceptors can be seen engaging incoming Iranian ballistic missiles.

https://twitter.com/i/status/2097441315638088165

https://x.com/i/trending/2020527782212637046