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Title: January 2, 2026
GRAY ZONE BRIEF 2 JANUARY 2026
DOMESTIC SITREP
**D.C. ACTIVISTS TRAINING “SKEPTICAL JURORS” TO RESIST
TRUMP ADMIN **- Activist group Free DC is holding
training events in Washington, D.C. to train activist “skeptical jurors.” On a
frigid December night in Washington, nearly two dozen people were gathered in a
downtown office building to learn how to turn one of the most routine civic
obligations — jury duty — into an opportunity for political activism. “As
jurors, we have an enormous amount of power to decide whether this
administration and its agenda are right — or wrong,” said Alex Dodds, a Free DC
co-founder who attended the session. The jury training session was among seven
events that Free DC sponsored that week, evidence of how the organization is
seeking to weave resistance into the fabric of the city as it faces a sweeping
flex of federal authority. (The Washington Post) **NOTE:** I would say this is
lawfare at its core, corrupting the jury system and thus ensuring no blind
justice. I am sure they will claim it is about making jurors skeptical, and
that is the basis of being a juror.
**Is This Legal?:
Leftist Group Recruits Military
Officials to Turn Against Trump's Drug Cartel Strikes** - A left-wing
organization advising military members who disagree with President Donald
Trump’s orders says officials are seeking its help over the president’s boat strikes
targeting Latin American drug traffickers. Win Without War, a “progressive
foreign policy” advocacy group, said its nationwide outreach campaign geared
toward the armed forces is working in a Sunday email to supporters, mentioning
billboards placed near military bases. “Staff officers and at least one drone
pilot have sought advice out of fear of legal consequences for their role in
Trump and [War Secretary Pete] Hegseth’s illegal boat strikes” on suspected
drug trafficker boats, the group said. “While Trump demands unquestioning
obedience, Win Without War is reminding troops they have options in case
they’re given illegal orders,” the email said. Win Without War previously
distributed a sign in Washington, D.C., telling National Guard members how to
seek counseling and legal advice if they were not comfortable being a part of
Trump’s crime crackdown in the district, the Daily Caller News Foundation
reported. Win Without War refers disgruntled service members to groups such as
the National Lawyers Guild, a major legal advocacy arm of the left with ties to
Palestinian terrorists and the former Soviet Union.
**NOTE: ** The DOJ and the Judge
Advocate General has already issued a determination the operations are
permissible.
—R.D.
GLOBAL SITREP
U.S. TROOPS IN SYRIA
**U.S.-Led Forces Kill or Detain
Nearly 25 ISIS Fighters in Syria, CENTCOM Says** - U.S. Central Command
(CENTCOM) said American forces and their partners killed or detained nearly 25
Islamic State fighters in Syria following a large-scale operation launched on
December 19. The missions were carried out across multiple regions of the
country. CENTCOM stated on Tuesday, December 30 that at least seven ISIS
members were killed during 11 operations conducted between December 20 and 29,
while others were arrested.
—R.D.
GLOBAL TERRORISM
This is an overview of security
incidents over the last 48 hours from The Counterterrorism Group (CTG)’s 24/7
Global Security Operations Center (GSOC).**
Multiple Incidents: Nigeria:
Bandit raids kill eight and displace
residents in Kebbi State, Bandit attack kills three and kidnaps three in Kaduna
State, Explosion damages Bagudo General Hospital staff quarters in Kebbi State;
no casualties reported.
Democratic Republic of Congo: FARDC
says M23 abducted and tortured at least 42 women in Rutshuru, North Kivu.
Australia: Paramedics report rising
verbal, physical, and sexual assaults on ambulance crews in Victoria.
—R.D.
NIGERIAN MOSQUE BOMBER
**Nigeria: 'I Was Paid N100,000 to
Bomb Borno Mosque', Says Suspected Terrorist** - A suspected Boko Haram
operative, Ibrahim Mohammed, has confessed that he was paid N100,000 to bomb a
mosque with its worshippers in Maiduguri, Borno State. The confession was
disclosed on Wednesday by counter-insurgency expert Zagazola Makama on his X
handle.
According to Makama, security sources
revealed to him that troops of Operation Hadin Kai arrested Ibrahim in
collaboration with local hunters in Yobe State. Quoting security sources,
Makama said that the suspect admitted involvement in the December 24 bombing at
the Gamboru Market Mosque in Maiduguri, which claimed five lives and injured 32
worshippers.
During interrogation, Ibrahim said the
attack was carried out on the directive of Boko Haram commanders operating
between Adamawa State and the Mandara Mountains. According to him, the devices
were timed ahead of Maghrib prayers. "As Muslim faithful gathered to pray
Maghrib, after the first raka'at, we detonated the bomb. We set the timing for
five minutes. Shortly after, I ran to the market area," he added. In a
disturbing revelation, the suspect said he returned to the scene after the
explosion and pretended to be a civilian volunteer.
Ibrahim also disclosed that suicide
bombing had become a paid assignment within the terror group. "I was paid
money ranging from N70,000 to N100,000 per mission," he said, adding that
he later regretted his actions. Security sources further revealed to Makama
that Ibrahim was part of a wider terror cell deployed to carry out coordinated
attacks across the North-East, involving elements of Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna
Lidda'awati wal-Jihad (JAS), Ansaru and Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin
(JNIM).
NIGERIA
**Troops kill one terrorist in Borno
ambush** - Troops of Operation Hadin Kai have neutralised one terrorist during
an ambush operation in Bama Local Government Area of Borno State. Sources told
Zagazola Makama that the operation took place at about 6:05 p.m. on December 28
in the Ladantar area of Bama local government.
—R.D.
HINDUSTAN
**Big security scare on New Year's
Eve, 2 arrested with 150 kg explosives in Rajasthan's Tonk** - A big security
scare on New Year's Eve came to light on Wednesday when the District Special
Team (DST) of Tonk police arrested two persons and seized 150 kg of explosives
from their car, PTI reported. The arrested accused have been identified as
Surendra Patwa and Surendra Mochi, both residents of Rajasthan's Bundi
district, officials quoted in the PTI report said. DSP Mrityunjay Mishra told
the news agency that the DST acted on a tip-off to intercept a car in the
Baroni police station area and recovered around 150 kg of ammonium nitrate
concealed in sacks of urea fertilizer.
—R.D.
IMMIGRATION JIHAD
**In Mamdani’s New York, Muslims
become a political and demographic force** - Othman Alahlemi and 200 other men
had crammed into the decades-old Bronx Muslim Center for afternoon prayers,
tripping over each other as they tried to leave down a narrow set of stairs in
the two-story building. But as he stepped outside, he could see a new,
32,000-square-foot mosque rising above a community of Yemeni food markets, gift
shops and clothing stores. The new Bronx Muslim Center, scheduled to open in
late 2026 in the recently named “Little Yemen” neighborhood, will become the
largest mosque in New York state — at least until several other Muslim
communities in the city complete their own expansion projects. In a city famous
for its ethnic diversity, where power has been held by successive waves of
Dutch, Irish, Italian, Jewish and Black residents, Muslims are now rising to
prominence and becoming a distinct political force.
In November, they formed the backbone
of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral election victory, ushering in a new era for New
York and the city’s changing demographics. The 34-year-old assemblyman took
office Thursday as the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor, bringing hope
to Muslim residents who for decades have felt they were merely on the edges of
municipal power. “We feel reflected in him,” Hafeez Raza, a 64-year-old
seamstress in Brooklyn, said about Mamdani. “For the first time in a long time,
people here feel the power to speak.”
—R.D.
GZB INFOCUS: 10,000 FOOT VIEW OF THE MIDDLE EAST GOING INTO
2026
The Middle East is entering a period
of strategic adjustment as the United States offloads some of its
responsibilities to regional allies. The region’s four most important powers –
Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran – are recalibrating their security
postures accordingly. This is generating new alignments and fault lines as each
country tries to anticipate, hedge against or exploit the reactions of the
other three.
In this context, several notable
developments took place in the past week or so.
On Dec. 31, Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara would not tolerate threats to its interests in the
Eastern Mediterranean, emphasizing the strategic importance of its “Blue
Homeland” doctrine and thus signaling vigilance over maritime borders. On Dec.
30, Saudi Arabia conducted airstrikes on a weapons shipment to Yemeni
separatists who had taken control of two provinces on the Saudi-Yemeni border.
The weapons were supposedly supplied by the United Arab Emirates, so the event
marked an unprecedented rupture between the Gulf Arab partners. On Dec. 26,
Israel formally recognized Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia, as an
independent state – a move that expands Israel’s footprint in the strategically
important Horn of Africa. On Dec. 23, at an event with the leaders of Greece
and Cyprus, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a thinly veiled
warning against Turkish attempts to “reestablish” its “empire.”
Finally, in an essay published in
Foreign Affairs magazine on Dec. 22, former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad
Javad Zarif stated that Iran was prepared to put half a century of U.S.-Iran
hostility behind it, while noting that domestic reform has become a national
security imperative for Tehran.
Together, these developments reflect a
region trying to adjust to a looser U.S. security architecture. Turkey, Israel,
Saudi Arabia and Iran are testing new limits as they reposition themselves
throughout the Middle East, often indifferent to the preservation of old
alliances.
Turkey
The conflict between Iran and Israel
left Iran in a weakened state and, in doing so, removed a critical constraint
on Turkey’s long-standing ambitions to expand influence along its southern
flank. The near-total destruction of Tehran’s most important proxies, Hamas and
Hezbollah, undermined its ability to project power through nonstate actors.
This led in part to the collapse of the Syrian government in December 2024,
clearing the way for a Turkish-backed Islamist government to consolidate
control.
Turkey’s ability to secure support for
the new government from Saudi Arabia and the U.S. significantly strengthened
its regional position. (Qatar was instrumental in this as well.) As did the
Gaza ceasefire and the subsequent 20-point peace plan from the U.S., which
envisions creation of an international stabilization force comprising Arab and
Muslim states but led by Turkey.
Meanwhile, Turkey has shored up its
position in other theaters. Its relationship with Egypt has deepened, not just
through coordinated policy on Gaza but also through Cairo’s decision to join
Ankara’s fifth-generation KAAN stealth fighter program. Ankara has consolidated
influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, cultivating ties with the
internationally recognized Libyan government as well as with the rival
government in Benghazi, thus facilitating Turkey’s ability to project power and
balance regional actors. Ankara has expanded strategic partnerships in Sudan,
Somalia and other states in the Horn of Africa, giving the government leverage
over critical maritime routes, energy corridors and local power balances.
By projecting influence from the
Eastern Mediterranean to the Horn, Turkey has positioned itself as a regional
actor capable of shaping outcomes in areas traditionally influenced by other
powers. The most consequential element of this shift is that Washington
increasingly sees Ankara as a reliable partner for managing the Middle East and
its adjacent strategic domains, effectively delegating aspects of regional
stabilization and power projection to Turkey.
Israel
From Israel’s perspective, the
expansion of Turkey’s influence is deeply concerning. Ankara has been largely
absent from regional affairs for decades, and even when it started flexing in
the 2010s, its interests often conflicted with (and were thus subordinate to)
U.S. interests. That is no longer the case now that Washington is increasingly
relying on Turkey to share regional burdens. For Israel, the most immediate
consequence of this shift is in Syria, where it is actively attempting to
counter Ankara by supporting Druze, Kurdish and other minority actors against
the Turkish-backed government.
Given Israel’s long-standing concern
over Turkish influence in the Levant, it strongly opposes Ankara’s leadership
role in postwar Gaza. Coupled with Turkey’s expanding ties to Egypt and Libya,
this development positions Israel to contend with Turkish leverage on multiple
strategic fronts. Israel has thus opposed the inclusion of Turkish forces in
the international stabilization force for Gaza in an attempt to limit Ankara’s
operational footprint in the territory. In his Dec. 29 meeting with U.S. President
Donald Trump, Netanyahu reportedly lobbied to exclude Erdogan from the U.S.-led
Board of Peace, which is tasked with overseeing Gaza’s postwar security,
governance and reconstruction.
For Israel, the expansion of Turkish
influence in the Eastern Mediterranean is a strategic challenge that must be
contained. This is why it is leveraging long-standing Turkish animosities with
Greece and Cyprus to reinforce a regional network capable of deterring Turkish
maritime and security ambitions. Israel’s options in North Africa are far more
limited, hence the decision to establish formal ties with Somaliland, which
offers a potential forward military presence to monitor and counter Turkish
activity. The Somaliland initiative also provides a platform to address threats
from the Yemeni Houthis, who have been targeting Israel since early 2024.
Saudi Arabia
Several factors are reshaping Saudi
Arabia’s strategic outlook in the region. Iran’s setbacks at Israel’s hands,
compounded by Iran’s internal political and economic crises, have reduced
Tehran’s capacity to project power, diminishing the threat it once posed to
Riyadh. At the same time, Riyadh recognizes its interests are best advanced by
coordinating with Turkey, particularly in Syria, where engagement constrains
Ankara’s influence and provides a counterbalance to Iran. This explains why the
kingdom is cooperating with Turkey to support the al-Shaara government despite
its historical opposition to Islamist actors. In turn, these new realities have
made it less urgent for Saudi Arabia to normalize ties with Israel under the
Abraham Accords, allowing Riyadh to calibrate its approach to Israel while
navigating a rapidly shifting regional balance.
This stance is driven largely by
domestic and regional public sentiment, which constrains Riyadh from engaging
Israel until a credible pathway toward some form of Palestinian statehood
emerges. Saudi leaders have adopted a wait-and-see approach toward Israel’s
current right-wing government, particularly with national elections scheduled
for later in the fall, to assess whether a political shift could alter their
strategic calculus. The resulting divergence in priorities has exposed a
growing rift between the kingdom and its ally in the UAE, which maintains
strong ties with Israel, is more wary of Turkish influence and maintains a
zero-tolerance policy toward Islamist actors.
These competing interests came to a
head in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia – already managing Houthi threats along three
southwestern provinces – sought to prevent the UAE from backing the Southern
Transitional Council faction that controls the remaining two southeastern
provinces, highlighting the operational and political frictions generated by
divergent Gulf strategies.
For the UAE, Yemen’s unitary state is
effectively defunct, so supporting the southern separatists is the most
reliable way to contain both pro-Iranian Houthis and Sunni Islamist factions.
For Saudi Arabia, by contrast,
allowing further instability along its southern border is unacceptable,
creating fundamental tension between Gulf approaches to Yemen. More broadly, as
a geopolitically conservative, risk-averse and militarily less agile power,
Saudi Arabia is unwilling to assume a dominant role in regional security on its
own. This strategic posture is reflected in its reliance on Pakistan,
exemplified by the signing of their Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement and the
delegation of key responsibilities in the Gaza international stabilization
force to Islamabad.
Iran
Of all four players, Iran is in the
most unique position in that it has just suffered a massive blow to a 40-year
strategy of making inroads into the Arab world. And it came at a time of
evolutionary regime change, which is shifting the balance of power from the
clergy to the military. More important, the regular armed forces have gained
the upper hand over the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The regime’s
evolution was accelerated by the 12-day war with Israel, in which many key
leaders of the IRGC were targeted.
A loose coalition of pragmatic
officers, politicians and clerics has been carefully managing a complex
transition within Iran. The process is no longer limited to succession plans
for the highly unpopular and ailing supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who
turns 87 in April; instead, it involves a deeper recalibration of regime
authority and legitimacy. This evolution reflects an effort to transform the
nature of governance through a delicately balanced program of social, political
and economic reforms designed to stabilize domestic pressures. Central to the
success of this strategy is reaching an accommodation with the U.S. The regime
recognizes that external engagement is a prerequisite for sustaining internal
reform and preserving strategic autonomy.
This is where Zarif’s Foreign Affairs
essay is revealing: It argues that decades of confrontation with the U.S. no
longer serve Iran’s strategic interests and that, in fact, it creates more risk
than reward. He outlined a new approach in which hostility is managed and
contained through predictable rules and restraint, rather than seeking full
friendship or sweeping agreements. Likewise, he framed domestic reform not as a
challenge to the Islamic Republic’s ideology but as a strategic necessity: A
more competent, adaptable and legitimate state strengthens Iran’s international
position and reduces reliance on confrontation. Zarif presented incremental
internal recalibration – updating governance, economic management and
state-society relations – as essential for preserving sovereignty, resilience
and regime survival under external pressures.
Zarif could not have published his
essay without the approval of Iran’s top leaders because it addresses core
questions of foreign policy and domestic reform that touch the regime’s
strategic foundations. Tehran now faces the central challenge of navigating a
complex internal transition without triggering systemic instability.
Widespread protests have compounded
the difficulty, prompting the regime – for the first time in its history – to
engage in direct negotiations with demonstrators as a means of managing
domestic pressure.
While Iran grapples with unprecedented
internal churn, the broader Middle East is simultaneously experiencing a
seismic transformation, reshaping regional power balances and strategic
alignments. Turkey’s expanding influence across multiple theaters is set to
heighten friction with Israel, while Saudi Arabia and Iran, constrained
differently by internal and external pressures, are likely to eschew the
strategic decisions that have defined their behavior for decades.
—J.G.
Pray.
Train.
Stay informed.
Build resilient communities to respond and recover from any
scenario.
—END REPORT
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