Latest news with #Circinus
Days of Palestine
16 hours ago
- Business
- Days of Palestine
Spies, Private Equity, and the Shadow War in Gaza: The Mercenary Firm Behind a Controversial Aid Operation
DaysofPal- As Gaza reels under months of relentless bombardment, a shadowy network of former CIA operatives, pro-Israel power players, and private equity investors have emerged at the heart of a controversial U.S.-Israeli-backed aid operation, raising urgent questions about profit, power, and accountability. At the center of it all is Safe Reach Solutions (SRS), a private military contractor now overseeing key humanitarian zones in Gaza—zones that Palestinian officials call 'death traps,' and where dozens have died trying to access food. But SRS isn't just another contractor—it's the product of a lucrative alliance between ex-intelligence elites, Trump-era political donors, and Wall Street money. And the deeper one looks, the more the firm seems like the byproduct of America's post-9/11 privatized warfare machine—now retooled and unleashed on Gaza. From CIA Frontline to Gaza Tents SRS is headed by Phil Reilly, a seasoned former CIA officer whose résumé reads like a Cold War novel: training Contra fighters in Nicaragua, operating in post-9/11 Afghanistan, and serving as deputy station chief in Baghdad. Insiders say Reilly became a legend in U.S. and Middle Eastern defense circles during the early drone war years. Reilly's past also connects him to Circinus, a little-known but influential intelligence firm once controlled by Elliot Broidy—a billionaire Trump donor and pro-Israel hawk. Broidy's firm raked in over $200 million in contracts from the UAE during the 2017 Gulf blockade of Qatar. Broidy later pleaded guilty to illegal foreign lobbying and was pardoned by Trump in 2021. Today, Circinus has rebranded and continues to do defense work for U.S. allies in the Middle East. Reilly wasn't just a Circinus alum—he served on the board. And now, through SRS, his work appears to be continuing under a different flag. A New Breed of Contractor: Private Equity Meets War What makes SRS different from earlier military firms like Blackwater isn't just its intelligence pedigree—it's who's funding it. Enter Ward McNally, a soft-spoken, bespectacled Chicago private equity magnate who turned a family fortune—built on publishing railroad maps—into a defense investment empire. McNally's firm, McNally Capital, has quietly been buying up national security contractors since 2021, betting big on AI surveillance, cybersecurity, and open-source intelligence. But Gaza offered something else entirely: a low-regulation, high-risk battlefield, where aid operations could be privatized, securitized, and monetized. One associate close to McNally summed it up bluntly: 'He likes this dark arts, intelligence, James Bond stuff. It excites him.' Multiple sources told Middle East Eye that McNally and Reilly originally floated the Gaza aid plan while at Orbis, a national security advisory firm chaired by former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell. Orbis reportedly wanted no part in the scheme, so Reilly and McNally set up Safe Reach Solutions as a new vehicle to carry it out. A $1.8 Billion Pipeline—With Guns SRS now deploys Arabic-speaking American contractors to secure aid distribution sites in Gaza. These sites are operated under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—a U.S.- and Israeli-approved initiative that's drawn harsh criticism from 15 international human rights groups and the United Nations, who warn it may be complicit in war crimes. While the U.S. State Department has pledged $30 million to the project, internal projections show GHF could be running on a $150 million monthly budget—a staggering $1.8 billion a year. Yet instead of offering safe relief, aid lines have turned deadly. In one day alone last month, 66 Palestinians were killed near U.S.-backed distribution points. BBC and AP reports confirmed that contractors guarding these areas used live ammunition on civilians, some reportedly desperate for food. SRS denies any serious injuries at its sites. But humanitarian officials say otherwise—and Palestinian doctors warn of mass casualties and growing malnutrition, especially among children. The Iraq Playbook, Rewritten for Gaza The model being used in Gaza eerily mirrors what the U.S. did in Iraq post-2003: privatize logistics, bypass international aid structures like the UN, and embed security in every layer of aid delivery. 'The Israelis looked at post-war Iraq and thought: that's the blueprint,' a source close to the planning told MEE. 'De-Baathification. Total control. And no independent oversight.' For Israel, this meant neutralizing UNRWA, the UN's refugee agency. For McNally and Reilly, it meant a gusher of contracts and a foothold in a conflict zone flush with both tragedy and opportunity. 'He said there were gobs of money to be made,' one McNally associate told MEE. Conclusion: Ghost Armies and Global Impunity The story of Safe Reach Solutions is not just a tale of war profiteering—it's a window into a global architecture of shadow wars, where humanitarian crises become market opportunities, and the line between relief and occupation is blurred beyond recognition. As over 56,000 Palestinians have now been killed, mostly women and children, Gaza has become a test site not just for military strategies, but for new forms of conflict capitalism. And while Gaza's civilians wait in line for a bag of flour or a bottle of water, former spies, war investors, and political fixers are securing their next contracts. Shortlink for this post:
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Astronomers gaze into 'dark nebula' 60 times the size of the solar system (video)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Astronomers have discovered a dense stellar nursery packed with infant stars in a vast "cosmic ink blot."The team made the discovery using one of the most powerful digital cameras in the world: the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The dark shadow overlaid on a starry background is known as the Circinus West molecular cloud. Circinus West is a cold, dense cloud of gas and dust that stretches out for 180 light-years, around 60 times the size of our solar system. Nebulas like this are so dense that light cannot pass through them, resulting in their dark, ink-like appearance and the fitting nickname "dark nebulas." With a mass around 250,000 times that of the sun, the Circinus West molecular cloud, located 2500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Circinus, is jam-packed with the raw material for star formation. Despite being a "dark nebula," the Circinus West molecular cloud isn't so dark that it can completely hide its young stellar population, however. The team zoomed in on this region with the powerful DECam instrument to see these stellar infants and their associated phenomena in greater detail. One dead giveaway of newborn stars is occasional pockets of light punctuating the inky tendrils of the molecular cloud. These are created during star formation when so-called "protostars" — stars that haven't yet gathered enough material to trigger the fusion of hydrogen to helium in their cores — launch jets of material into space, carving cavities in the dense molecular gas and find these high-energy outflows are easier to see than the protostars that launch them. That is because protostars are still wrapped in natal blankets of gas and dust from which they continue to gather mass on their journey to becoming main-sequence stars like the sun. This makes these outflows and cavities a great indicator of the location of protostars. Multiple outflows can be seen in the central black tendril of the Circinus West molecular cloud, named the Cir-MMS the heart of the Cir-MMS region is a large cavity that is being cleared by radiation blasting out for an infant star. Another stellar newborn is clearing a similar cavity at the bottom left of the Cir-MMS region. The abundance of "Herbig-Haro" (HH) objects in Circinus West is another indication of active star formation. HH objects are glowing red patches of nebulous gas and dust commonly found near newborn stars. They are created when fast-moving gas ejected by stars slams into slower-moving surrounding gas. Circinus West is packed with such objects, punctuating the dark lanes of gas and dust. It isn't just newborn stars that populate Circinus West. This molecular cloud is also home to many stars at the other end of the stellar cycle of life and nebulas, seen by the DECam in Circinus West as red blotches, are the remains of red giant stars, stellar bodies that have reached the end of their hydrogen supplies and their main sequence lifetimes. At this point, they shed their outer layers, with this material dispersing and cooling, creating a planetary nebula (which somewhat confusingly actually have nothing to do with planets). Related Stories: — James Webb Space Telescope investigates the origins of 'failed stars' in the Flame Nebula — Running Chicken Nebula glows in gorgeous new image from Very Large Telescope in Chile — Earth-size planet discovered around cool red dwarf star shares its name with a biscuit The team behind this research hopes that by studying the infant and aging stars of Circinus West and their outflows can reveal more about how they shape their immediate environments Ultimately, this could reveal the processes that govern the evolution of galaxies like the Milky Way.
