The U.S. military enabled child sex slavery in Afghanistan. Now those predators are back at Fort Bragg. 💀 DONATE now to keep MintPress Alive: mintpressnews.com/donations

The empire's crimes don't stay overseas. For two decades, the U.S. military ignored—and often facilitated—bacha bazi: the systematic sexual enslavement of children in Afghanistan. Now, MintPress News uncovers how those predators returned home.

Since 2021, dozens of elite soldiers at Fort Bragg have been convicted of raping children, trafficking minors, and distributing child pornography. Whistleblowers reveal a culture of command complicity: officers who laugh off abuse, bury investigations, and protect predators to "save the unit's reputation."

This is imperial blowback. This is what happens when a military machine dehumanizes abroad—and brings that depravity home.

A wide range of anonymous X (Twitter) users have reported that their real names are suddenly being Googled in Israel shortly after they began criticizing the country for its actions in Palestine. Some connected the phenomenon to Au10tix, the software X requires users (even anonymous ones) to use in order to verify their real identities.

Au10tix is an Israeli company founded and staffed by former Israeli spies from the elite Israeli military intelligence group Unit 8200. MintPress News investigates this disturbing phenomenon.

“The Largest Honeypot Operation On the Planet”

“I’m not even kidding when I say my full legal name, including my middle name, has been searched up in Israel 11 times in the past day,” wrote TransFemPOTUS, an anonymous X user who has been highly critical of Israel’s actions.

This was not an isolated incident. “So apparently my full legal name got searched for in Israel the other day,” revealed TheAtlantean9, an anonymous far-left user with a Palestinian flag in their bio.

Meanwhile, artist Bionico Bandito stated that “My full name got searched 100 times in Israel when I posted this,” referring to a cartoon depicting associates of Jeffrey Epstein being executed.

Across the world, from conservative Japanese accounts to American conspiracy theorists, anonymous users are reporting that data from Google Trends shows their real names, not divulged anywhere online, are being mass searched in Israel.

How could this be happening? Some laid the blame at Au10tix’s door. “Only Au10tix and X holds my data obtained from ID verification,” wrote one user in a viral post, adding, “The rumors are absolutely true.”

“Israel is now 100% confirmed to be Googling anonymous users on X and their family members shortly after they speak out against the country,” wrote another, concluding that, “X is now the largest honeypot operation on the planet.”

The theory centers around Israeli security company Au10tix, who, in 2023, was tasked with verifying users’ identities, a prerequisite for joining X’s premium service which allows users a far greater reach.

The process requires individuals to upload a picture of their passport or other photo I.D., and allow Au10tix to scan their face via their device’s camera. Au10tix claims that it deletes users’ data within 72 hours of receiving it. However, the fact that the company was founded and is staffed by veterans of notorious Israeli spying group Unit 8200 – a group that has been behind many of the most outrageous hacking, infiltration, and cyberwarfare scandals of the past decade – has led many to be extremely suspicious.

The idea that Au10tix itself, or the Israeli government could be using the data given to it by users in order to combat online criticism is far from outlandish. The Department of Homeland Security is already known to be doing the same, sending hundreds of subpoenas to Google, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, and other large social media apps demanding they share the personal information and identities of anonymous users who have criticized the actions of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). Government officials confirmed to The New York Times that platforms have often complied with their requests.

Au10tix was founded in 2002 by Ron Atzmon, a Unit 8200 veteran whose father was treasurer of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. It got its start providing hi-tech security systems at airports and other venues, before branching out into the online sphere.

Atzmon does not hide his strong political views. His professional LinkedIn profile is littered with posts supporting Israel, or condemning American students protesting Israel’s attack on Gaza, comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan, or reposting videos of far–right commentator Douglas Murray presenting the protestors as antisemitic supporters of terror.

A significant number of Au10tix’s employees are also ex-Israeli spooks. Until 2016, Eliran Levi was a Unit 8200 agent. In 2022, the company hired him as a developer. Others, however, go straight from the intelligence services into Au10tix. Lior Emuna, for instance, left her job as an intelligence analyst at Unit 8200 to join Au10tix. She is now an analytics manager. And in 2019, Sara Benita left her position as a mobile communications systems operator at Unit 8200 to become an engineer for the company. Director of product management, Shay Rechter, meanwhile, was a senior Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) commander before joining the organization.

Unit 8200 is the IDF’s most elite intelligence unit. Often described as “Israel’s Harvard,” it serves as the centerpiece of the country’s hi-tech spying and military apparatus. The unit is dedicated to surveillance, cyberwarfare, and online manipulation operations, and has been responsible for many of the most shocking acts of tech-based sabotage and terror in recent years.

This includes the 2024 Lebanese pager attack, where agents smuggled thousands of booby-trapped electronic devices into the country, exploding them en masse, killing 42 people and wounding thousands more. The event was widely condemned, even by former director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, as an act of terrorism.

Unit 8200 also created the notorious Pegasus software that was used to spy on more than 50,000 journalists, politicians, diplomats, business leaders and human rights defenders worldwide. Confirmed targets included President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, and Iraqi president, Barham Salih.

Known purchasers of Pegasus include the Central Intelligence Agency and the government of Saudi Arabia, who used it to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was assassinated by Saudi agents in Türkiye. All sales of Pegasus had to be approved by the Israeli government, who reportedly had access to the data Pegasus’ foreign customers were accruing.

Unit 8200 also reportedly produced malware that attacked Microsoft Windows operating systems, using loopholes it found to attack control systems, delete hard drives, and shut down key systems, such as the energy infrastructure of Iran.

Surely their most deadly endeavor, however, is Project Lavender. The group developed the Lavender software, which uses A.I. and big data to develop a profile on every person in Gaza (including children), assigning them a score of 1-100, based on individuals’ perceived connections to Hamas. A wide range of characteristics, including sharing similar work schedules to or being in a WhatsApp group with a known Hamas member, would raise one’s score. If an individual’s number reached a certain level, they would automatically be put on a list.

These A.I.-driven kill lists allowed the IDF to find a way around what they called “targeting bottlenecks,” with Lavender identifying over 37,000 Palestinians to be executed in the first few weeks of the attack alone. There was little-to-no human oversight on these systems.

Lavender is known to be distinctly hit-or-miss. Many professions with similar communication patterns to Hamas, including police and firefighters, or even people with the same name as a resistance fighter, were flagged for execution. IDF sources themselves suggest a 10% false positive rate.

Unit 8200 was able to do this thanks to the massive surveillance apparatus it has built up over time. Palestinians’ every public move is watched over by facial recognition cameras. Their calls, texts, and emails are monitored. Dossiers on every Palestinian, including their medical history, sex lives and search histories, are compiled, so that this information can be used for extortion or blackmail later. If, for example, an individual is cheating on their spouse, desperately needs a medical operation, or is secretly homosexual, this can be used as leverage to turn civilians into informants and spies for Israel. One former Unit 8200 operative said that as part of his training, he was assigned to memorize different Arabic words for “gay” so that he could listen out for them in conversations.

This is why X working with Au10tix, an organization established and run by agents of foreign power, compelling users to give it their most intimate personal details, is so controversial. Unit 8200 exists to carry out cyberwarfare and clandestine spying operations around the world, and it is an open question to what extent anyone ever truly retires from the business of espionage.

While its reputation is highly controversial around the world, Unit 8200 is considered the most prestigious group within the Israeli military. In a country with mandatory national service, parents spend fortunes on science and math classes for their children, hoping they will make the highly-competitive selection process, knowing that it represents a fast track to a lucrative career in the country’s burgeoning hi-tech sector. Hundreds end up working at Google, Amazon, Facebook, and other big American tech platforms.

Au10tix has insisted that it does not store users’ personal data, including their identities. But when a company is founded, headed and staffed by individuals from one of the most infamous spying organizations on the planet – one whose modus operandi has been to infiltrate, surveil, and blackmail both its allies and its opponents – the question arises: why would we trust them?

Jeff Monson breaks down the Western narrative on the Ukraine Conflict, setting the record straight using his own personal experience in Donbass from the beginning of the Conflict to the present day. He still seems to have some brain cells left. How about you? 1/3 of their population has left...it is like who really is invading? Til the last Ukrainian I suppose in the interest of the capital owners in the west. lets not forget the Saudis and now their farmland. Just make it all just one big fascist data center to spy on people in other countries or is that what greenland will be used for other than a mineral well. I know you really care don't you.....a lot... it is safe cause the tv told you so.

Aviation analyst Alex Hollings, editor in chief of Sandbox News, joins ABC15 to break down how low-cost LUCAS drones are changing the war in Iran. These "kamikaze" drones are about 10 feet long and have a wingspan of eight feet. Launched via catapults or truck-mounted rockets, they fly to pre-programmed coordinates to destroy targets upon impact In an in-depth interview, Hollings explains why small companies like Phoenix-based SpektreWorks are increasingly central to U.S. defense strategy. He compares these drones with traditional missiles in terms of cost, range, and destructive power, and describes how they can overwhelm enemy air defenses.

I know hasan is a simp and uses windows but he still needs to talk about this. Bring it up to newscum.... This is to crush learning and open source software. Liberals are fascist

California quietly passed a law that requires every operating system — including Linux, FreeBSD, and SteamOS — to implement mandatory age verification at account setup, with a real-time API that broadcasts your age bracket to every app that asks. The fines? Up to $7,500 per affected child per violation. For solo developers and open-source maintainers, that's not a slap on the wrist — that's a death sentence.

Assembly Bill 1043, the Digital Age Assurance Act, was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on October 13, 2025 and goes into effect January 1, 2027. In this video we break down exactly what the law requires, why it's technically unenforceable on open-source platforms, what the privacy implications actually look like, and how the community is already responding — including one BSD project that literally banned California from its license.

Colorado is drafting an identical bill. Both parties voted for this unanimously. And Newsom himself admitted in his signing statement the law isn't finished. Welcome to tech policy in 2026.

AB 1043 Official Bill Text → leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1043 Lunduke Journal — California Law Breakdown → lunduke.substack.com/p/california-law-to-require-linux-windows Lunduke Journal — MidnightBSD Bans California → lunduke.locals.com/post/7724876/midnightbsd-responds-to-californias-age-verification-law-by-excluding-california PC Gamer — OS Age Verification Coverage → pcgamer.com/software/operating-systems/a-new-california-law-says-all-operating-systems-including-linux-need-to-have-some-form-of-age-verification-at-account-setup Shacknews — AB 1043 Overview → shacknews.com/article/148077/california-assembly-bill-1043-operating-system-os-age-verify-2027 Alston & Bird Legal Analysis → alstonprivacy.com/california-enacts-digital-age-verification-law Reason.org — CA 2025 Tech Policy Recap → reason.org/commentary/recapping-californias-2025-tech-policy-bills Colorado SB 26-051 Full Text → leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB26-051

STRANGLING BORDER PATROL AGENT + BODY CAM RELEASED + ON DUTY BOOTY WITH ANOTHER DEPUTY'S WIFE + MORE

"A Direct Apology Is Lacking:"Worland Cop Sentenced For Molesting Children

Former Worland police officer Myron Chatwin was sentenced Wednesday evening to 40–70 years in prison for sexually abusing three children. Judge Bobbie Overfield denied a more lenient sentence, citing his lack of remorse. “A direct apology is lacking,” the judge said. A former Washakie County Sheriff’s deputy was sentenced In Washakie District Court in Worland on Wednesday to between 40 and 70 years in prison after being found guilty of sexual abuse against minor children.

District Court Judge Bobbie Overfield said she sentenced Myron Chatwin based on his abuse against the children and his lack of responsibility for his actions. Chatwin is not eligible for probation. He is to serve three sentences of 30 to 40 concurrently or simultaneously for counts one, two and three of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor.

Chatwin was also sentenced to between 10 and 20 years each for counts five and six of second-degree sexual abuse against minors. The last two counts are to be served concurrently and consecutively to counts one through three.

Overfield said that Chatwin was not under the influence of any substances and was sober when he committed the sex crimes against the children, all under the age of 13, which caused the court concern. The physical and mental abuse he afflicted as a trusted adult destroyed the trust the children will have for future adults, the judge added.

“A direct apology is lacking,” Overfield said before pronouncing sentence.

Chatwin was first charged with the felonies of molesting the young girls in December 2024. He was soon released and was working in Utah until a jury convicted him in Washakie District Court in November 2025 on five counts of child sex abuse for molesting the three young girls. Counsel Held In Contempt

The sentencing was scheduled for 1 p.m., however, it was delayed when the defense attorney, Christina Cherni, was unable to be present.

Overfield told those gathered in the courtroom that she knew that they had been waiting a long time and many had come long distances but since the defense counsel was unable to make it in-person, the sentencing for Chatwin was delayed.

“The court had to make a quick decision,” Overfield said. “This case has been fraught with difficulties and the court does attempt to do its best in the circumstances.”

The court decided to hold the defense attorney in contempt for failure to appear at the scheduled time for the sentencing.

Overfield said the sentencing would occur as planned later in the afternoon, out of respect for the families who had traveled great distances and taken time out of their schedules to be present.

Cherni did ultimately show up. Young Victims

Special prosecutor John Worrall told Cowboy State Daily that this was the end of a long hard case. He said he respected the courage of the young girls who suffered through not only the abuse but through the trial as well.

“It is my last case, and I couldn’t say no since these girls were denied justice for years,” said Worrall, who had come out of retirement to take the case. “It was a reward for me to get them justice.”

The victims spoke during the sentencing. They talked about the deep pain they continue to suffer, being victimized by a trusted adult, who abused them and broke their trust. The children addressed the ongoing abuse they suffered and the fear they said they still face.

Chatwin sat through their testimony without any outward reaction and focused on a computer screen rather than looking directly at the victims.

When Chatwin addressed the court, he became emotional and trembled, pausing often during his statement. He said that after reading the victim impact statements in January, the hurt and damage from his actions hit him.

“There is no one to blame but myself,” Chatwin said. “This is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life.”

His defense attorney, Cherni, asked that Chatwin be granted probation and an opportunity to pay restitution or, if that was not possible, that Chatwin serve the minimum sentence allowed by Wyoming of between 25 and 30 years.

Overfield said that based on the investigation and interviews, Chatwin had shown an inability to accept responsibility and was not eligible for the probation. Overfield said that the court appreciates that Chatwin now realizes he needs counseling but noted that in the past year, no counseling had been initiated.

“Just now realizing how a trial would cause trauma to the children causes the court concern,” Overfield said before issuing her sentence.

I mean what is the UN really? hahaha These daze beaches be running wild. I mean... I guess they get a pay check. HEYYYYY

Inside the Cypriot campaign to kick out British bases

Long before a drone struck RAF Akrotiri, opposition to one of Britain’s last colonial outposts was already growing in Cyprus

After a drone hit a Royal Air Force base in Cyprus on Sunday night, the debate in Britain has centred on why the airfield was not better protected. But in Cyprus, anger is focused on why Britain still has military bases there at all.

“We got no sleep last night,” local resident Melanie Steliou told Declassified on Monday, as sirens blared in the background. “My son has not gone to school today because it is next to the base.

“I naturally feel scared, frustrated and mad at what is going on…I’m mad at Keir Starmer for putting Cyprus on the spot,” she said of the prime minister’s announcement the night before that America could use British bases to bomb Iran.

While some UK personnel are being evacuated from Akrotiri, local Cypriots have nowhere else to go. “It’s a sickening example of a colonial mindset,” Steliou said. “The base shouldn’t be there in the first place.”

These are not just idle words. Steliou is a candidate for parliamentary elections being held in Cyprus this May. She is running on a left-wing slate organised by AKEL, the main opposition party, who currently hold 15 out of 56 seats in parliament and want the British bases gone.

If elected, Steliou will become an MP for Limassol, a coastal constituency next to RAF Akrotiri, which sits on Cyprus’ southernmost peninsula. Miles of land around the airbase, including a salt lake, wildlife centre, farms and beach bars, is occupied by Britain and almost completely encircles parts of the constituency.

The UK claims this as a “sovereign base area”, and has another on the east of the island at Dheklia, near the clubbing hotspot of Ayia Napa. Together these 98 square miles amount to three percent of Cyprus, which Britain refused to fully decolonise when it granted independence to the rest of the Mediterranean island in 1960. ‘Spy on the entire region’

For Steliou, the drone strike at Akrotiri came as no surprise. She has warned for years about the risk posed by Britain’s military bases on the island, especially as they allow access to US troops. At the time of writing, it looks like the drone was fired by Hezbollah in Lebanon and hit a hangar housing American U-2 spy planes, which have previously spied on the group.

Speaking to Declassified a month earlier, on 25 January, Steliou pointed out how Hezbollah’s late leader Hassan Nasrallah once warned that “if Cyprus gave facilities to Israel to help bomb Iran, Cyprus would be attacked. So it is a danger for the people here.”

Steliou made the prescient comments as she was about to board a coach with dozens of activists from Cyprus’ largest left-wing youth group, EDON. They hold an annual protest each January on the summit of Mount Troodos, the highest point of Cyprus, where Britain has a spy station that it shares with American intelligence officers.

“The equipment they have on Troodos can spy on the entire region,” she informs the teenagers on the coach as they wind through the mountains from Limassol, while Declassified films the journey. Out of the windows, a giant white golf ball-looking radar dome is ever present, crowning Mount Troodos.

Its capabilities were shrouded in secrecy until 2016, when National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that spies on Troodos could hack into Israeli drone feeds. Back in 2008, British intelligence agency GCHQ regarded Israel as a “real threat to the stability of the region”, and thought the hacking could provide a “tip-off for any potential pre-emptive or retaliatory strike against Iran.”

Geopolitical shifts mean Britain is now much closer to Israel, having signed a military pact together in 2020. Although the text remains classified, intelligence relations with Israel are thought to be close.

An Israeli special forces veteran told Declassified the pact enhanced military intelligence cooperation between the Israeli army surveillance unit 8200 and GCHQ. “This means that Cyprus, through the bases, is complicit in the wars that are taking place in the region,” Steliou tells the coach party. “It puts the citizens themselves at risk.” ‘Can’t tell the world’

Steliou has a unique perspective on the situation. Her mother is English and came to work on the bases as a teacher in the 1960s. She fell in love with a Cypriot, which put her under suspicion from the British military, but their relationship survived.

And so Steliou grew up living next to the bases, including during the first Gulf wars when they were used to attack Iraq. But it has been the genocide in Gaza that galvanised her opposition.

“They’re collaborating with the Israeli military,” she exclaims. “Keir Starmer, when he visited the bases in Cyprus [in 2024], he said ‘although we’re really proud of what you’re doing here, we can’t necessarily tell the world’. Well obviously they can’t tell the rest of the world what they’re doing because he’d have to own up to being complicit in a genocide.”

That complicity consists of hundreds of surveillance flights Britain sent over Gaza from Akrotiri. Officially looking for hostages, no evidence has ever been provided that they helped find any, raising concerns that Israel could have used intelligence from the planes for its general war effort.

US military transport planes were also allowed to pass through Akrotiri enroute to Israel. “It was a great realisation to understand exactly what the British are doing on the bases and to accept this part of my own history,” she says, as the coach pulls into Troodos junction, about half a kilometer from the summit.

There’s a row of cafes and restaurants, including one named after Ben Nevis, Britain’s tallest mountain. Coaches have come from most parts of the island, as EDON strives to organise their protest to include members of the Turkish community.

A sea of red, green and white flags spills out into the road, as a drummer prepares to lead the crowd up the hill. Eight young women hold letters that spell “bases out”. Steliou greets AKEL candidates from other constituencies as they begin to march up the snow-lined hill.

Hundreds of protesters chant “Out, out, out! British bases out!” Soon they approach a barbed wire fence and assemble outside RAF Troodos, which prickles with antennas, cameras and radars.

‘Colonialism 101’

EDON’s secretary general, Seviros Koulas, begins to address the crowd: “We do not accept Cyprus as a springboard for war, we do not accept our homeland as part of the war machine that spreads death in our neighbourhood.

“Operations directly linked to the war in Gaza and the massacre of the Palestinian people pass through here. All this is happening while our region is burning. While the Middle East is drowning in blood.

“And some here want to convince us that the deeper we get involved, the ‘safer’ we will be. They are lying. Involvement does not bring security. It brings danger. It makes us a target.”

Koulas, who is standing as an AKEL candidate in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, then tries to deliver a declaration to the British staff inside Troodos. However, none of the UK personnel will come out to collect it, and he is forced to pin it on the gate.

Steliou approaches him, confused by the spectacle. “We are here every year, it’s an annual event,” Koulas confides. “It is the first time they didn’t even send an officer or somebody working in the UK bases to come and take our demands…they just said leave it on the door. This is how they think they own the place.”

“This is colonialism 101,” Steliou reflects.

Far-right threat

With the protest over, the crowd heads back down the mountain to a picnic spot where EDON has organised a small music festival. Steliou catches up with Orestis Matsas, another AKEL candidate, and asks him why he wants to be an MP.

“The rise of the far-right is a reason to support a party that was always against that,” he says, drawing a distinction with AKEL’s traditional left-wing credentials. “The far-right in Cyprus is not anymore an isolated issue,” he stresses, referring to ELAM, a party which is surging in the polls and threatens to overtake AKEL.

ELAM espouses ultranationalist politics, seeking to unify Cyprus with Greece, and has ties to the banned criminal group Golden Dawn. Steliou shares his concerns. “We need more empathy in the world, and less colonialism and less militarism.”

AKEL is also seeking to challenge the governing party, the centre-right Democratic Rally, which won two more seats than them at the last election. The president of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, is a veteran of Democratic Rally, although he is no longer in the party.

He is close to Benjamin Netanyahu – having bought Israeli air defence systems for Cyprus – and Keir Starmer, whose use of Akrotiri the president failed to challenge throughout the Gaza genocide

“Christodoulides is leading a spineless foreign policy that is not serving the interests of our people,” AKEL MP Marina Nicolaou tells Steliou. A month later, the president would accept Starmer’s assurance that the base was not being used to attack Iran, only for it to be struck regardless.

Although Christodoulides has another two years left in office and is responsible for foreign policy, Nicolaou believes the parliamentary elections in May could heap pressure on him to change course. “The stronger AKEL is in parliament, the more pressure it can put on the government.”

For Steliou, the issue goes to the heart of their liberty. “The bases are a remnant of British colonialism. We think we have the Republic of Cyprus and that we are free. As long as you have bases and they are considered British territory, you are not completely free.”