Dead Drop: August 25

PRIGOZHIN’S BIG SURPRISE: It seemed the only person surprised by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s untimely death in a plane crash in Russia this week, was Yevgeny Prigozhin.  The world still doesn’t know what Russian President Vladimir Putin said to his one-time chef-turned-mercenary leader after he tried to launch a coup – two months to the day – before his reported death but whatever it was, Prigozhin must have eaten it up.  Maybe Prigozhin should have been listening more closely to CIA Director Bill Burns, instead of the Russian President, as Burns told a group recently that Putin is someone “who thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold.”  Cipher Brief Expert and former senior CIA station chief Dan Hoffman told The Cipher Brief, “This reminds me of the movie The Godfather when Michael Corleone’s character goes to Carlo, the abusive husband of his sister, and tells him he’s out of the family and has to move to Vegas. Carlo goes to the car and gets strangled to death instead. That’s how Corleone’s character dealt with it.”

WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED THAT?  Well, yeah. A lot of people.  Voice of America reported late last week, that there is a growing consensus that two years after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, the country is once again becoming an incubator for terrorism. VOA reports some analysts believe there are about twenty different terrorist groups operating freely in Afghanistan today. But not everyone agrees.  For example – the chief spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, says his outfit has essentially put an end to terrorism within his country.  Yeah, right. VOA quoted President Biden as telling reporters at a press briefing in July, that he said at the time of the pullout, that going forward, al-Qaeda would not be in Afghanistan – and they are not.  But analysts in the VOA report say there are plenty of others.