It was August 2006, and the ranch-style home was surrounded by Denver police, the bomb squad, and special agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, as well as the FBI. Helicopters circled the property from above. The neighborhood had been ...
The U.S. Army Special Forces team at Camp Shaheen near Mazar-i-Sharif in Balkh Province, Afghanistan, was rehearsing for a mission the following day. Once they were finished, they began staging their vehicles in preparation to head back to Mazar-i-Sharif. It was July ...
Former Green Beret and Delta Force breacher Scot Spooner had already endured significant emotional trauma before enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1992.His dad was an alcoholic, and his parents split up when he was 12. It didn’t take long for alcoholism to take a hold ...
The forest of mostly dead trees sits near the highway in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Syringes and broken bottles litter the landscape. On occasion, you might catch a vagrant cooking some food or a junkie getting his fix. You might also see master knife-thrower Adam Celadin ...
Three years after ISIS declared a caliphate in Raqqa, Syria, its ability to take more territory had crumbled. With constant coalition airstrikes and special operations forces weakening the jihadist group, its capability to effectively fight back was waning. Once a force ...
At 6-foot-3, 19-year-old Elder Ostler stood a head taller than most of the people he saw walking down the street in Krasnodar, Russia. He wore a white dress shirt with a black name tag, a paisley tie, and a pair of slacks. His companion, Elder Dance, accompanied him ...
José Castellanos was in his mid-30s and had served in the New York Police Department (NYPD) for 15 years, both as a patrol officer and a detective. He was a seasoned officer but was now stepping into new shoes that were much more challenging to walk in — those of a ...
Fire Captain Trevor Pool has worked on some of the harshest rescue operations in America. He has seen the devastation wreaked by major hurricanes first-hand and has spent twenty years in the fire service. So, when Hurricane Harvey came slamming through Texas, he was ...
In August 1996, Usama Bin Laden issued a fatwa against Americans, declaring holy war against the United States and its interests. The fatwa reads, in part:“The people of Islam awakened and realised that they are the main target for the aggression of the ...
Yosef Talha was 25 when the war in Syria came to his doorstep. He lived with his family in the countryside just outside of the now-infamous city of Aleppo when Bashar al-Assad’s security forces came into his city without notice, forcing him from his home. He had ...
Editor’s Note: This is an emotionally jarring article that details a heinous crime against a minor and may be disturbing for many readers. Please read with caution.Las Vegas Homicide Detective Phil Ramos watched the surveillance tape of Jeremy Strohmeyer, an ...
George Snow, a 49-year-old self-described survivalist, was wanted on weapons and drug charges. He fled New York state to the southern U.S. and set up his tent in a rural area of Fayetteville, North Carolina — thus making him a fugitive.He was considered armed, ...
With heavily tattooed arms, a motorcycle vest, red bandana, and long goatee, Jay Dobyns fit the stereotype for the kind of person who would hang around the street-hardened bikers of the Hells Angels Skull Valley Charter. He would peddle T-shirts for the one-percenter ...
Jeff Tiegs is a former US Army Delta Force Operator who now works in the shadows to hunt a different kind of terrorist: those who exploit women and girls in the sex trade.As the head of Guardian Group, Tiegs — along with many other former special operations and law ...
Hamas, founded in 1987 by Ahmad Yassin, is a foreign terrorist group that was formed during the first intifada against Israel. Yassin, a radical Sunni spiritual leader, created Hamas during the unrest in Gaza to emphasize the Islamist aims of the Muslim ...
The streets of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, aren’t just a popular destination for tourists seeking a glimpse into the 18th century. Blended into the populace are people training to become spies, learning the basics of tradecraft. The Virginia hamlet is often used by ...
Since the Civil War, sharpshooters — now called snipers — are among the most feared on the battlefield. With stealth and concealment as their camouflage, you never know where they might be. Behind Germany, Russia, and even China, the US military didn’t use snipers on a ...
Mohammed Sulaiman is a pilot who once possessed privileges surpassing all others in the Iraqi Air Force. As a member of the VIP squadron, his plane escorted the infamous dictator Saddam Hussein and many members of his cabinet around the world. Sulaiman regularly talked ...
With just over 5,000 employees, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is one of the smaller federal law enforcement agencies.However, that doesn’t mean they don’t deal with their share of vicious individuals, groups, and threats. In fact, ...
Thirty-five thousand people work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but there is only one national counterintelligence executive (NCIX) to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The role steers away from the spotlight (it’s literally behind ...
The nuclear codes are one of the United States government’s most closely guarded secrets. The codes are carried in an emergency satchel — a briefcase that can only be accessed by those who have clearance. Since the days of President John F. Kennedy, a senior military ...
Operation Iraqi Freedom cost an estimated 4,411 US lives. If it wasn’t for the courage of Iraqi Sergeant Major Hamody Jasim, that figure would likely have been much higher.When Jasim was 12, he was stopped by members of the Ba’ath Party while walking home from ...
