Vishwamitra Brief Issue #009 | 4 October 2026 The week offered a useful test of how claims survive contact with evidence: a G7 oil release, an American military exit from Iraq, attacks on Kyiv's bridges, and new measurements of Mars, a neutron-star merger and Vesuvius. By Santhosh Vishwamitra Strategic Briefing The G7 agreed on 2 October to coordinate the release of 100 million barrels of crude and diesel through the International Energy Agency over four months, with a substantial diesel release front-loaded into the first 20 days. The more revealing figure is 75 million barrels. The IEA said that 325 million barrels had been released from the 400 million barrels pledged in March. It remains unclear whether the new G7 release includes that outstanding amount or comes on top of it. This issue covers 28 September to 4 October 2026. Washington and its allies argued over fuel, the last US troops left Iraq, and Russian strikes damaged Kyiv's bridges. At...
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Before Launching the Iran War, Trump's FBI Director Fired the Only People Protecting America From Iranian Retaliation | Inside Stories
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Days before Trump launched the biggest US military operation since Iraq, his FBI director fired the agents whose specific job was protecting America from Iranian retaliation. The reason had nothing to do with national security. It was personal. And I find that very hard to move past.
What Patel Did and When
Around February 26-27, 2026, FBI Director Kash Patel fired at least a dozen agents and staff from CI-12, a specialised counterintelligence unit based at the FBI's Washington Field Office. CI-12 is the unit whose job, for years, was tracking Iranian threats on American soil. Tracking assassination plots. Running informant networks inside the Iranian community in the US. Monitoring IRGC-linked operatives. Mapping covert recruitment operations.
Two days later, on February 28, Trump authorised Operation Epic Fury. US and Israeli strikes hit Iran's nuclear infrastructure, military command, and killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The largest US military operation in over two decades had begun.
They were fired before America went to war with Iran. Not after. Before. Let that sit for a moment.
Who CI-12 Actually Was
CI-12 is not a generic law enforcement unit. It is an elite counterespionage squad handling media leaks, global espionage, and threats from foreign governments with a specific focus on Iran and the broader Middle East. Five-time Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Carol Leonnig described it as "the global espionage unit" of the FBI's Washington operation.
In 2020, after Trump ordered the drone strike that killed IRGC General Qasem Soleimani, CI-12 was the unit that monitored Iranian retaliatory threats against American officials on US soil. When Iran plotted to assassinate Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former National Security Adviser John Bolton, CI-12 was tracking those plots. When a former US Air Force intelligence specialist named Monica Witt defected to Iran and began spying for the IRGC, it was CI-12 that exposed her and secured a grand jury indictment. When Pakistani national Asif Merchant entered the US in 2024 to recruit hitmen for Iran, CI-12 was part of the apparatus that caught him.
These agents had something that cannot be rebuilt quickly. They had confidential informants inside the Iranian community in the United States. Sources developed over years. Relationships built carefully. A CBS News source with direct knowledge of the unit said it plainly: "You can't replicate that with new agents. These sources will go away."
That last sentence is the one that should be in every headline right now. It is not.
The Real Reason They Were Fired
Patel claimed, without providing evidence, that the CI-12 agents had engaged in "improper investigative steps." That framing collapsed under scrutiny within 24 hours. Every report from CNN, CBS News, NBC News, and The New York Sun confirmed the same thing: the agents were fired because they had previously worked on the Justice Department's investigation into Trump's retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
The immediate trigger was personal. A week before the firings, Patel learned that Special Counsel Jack Smith's team had obtained his own phone records, along with those of current White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, as part of the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 investigations. Patel called this "outrageous" and said it was a "weaponized" Biden DOJ. Within hours of that statement going public, the CI-12 firings were ordered.
The agents who were fired were not fired because they failed. They were fired because they had been in the same building as an investigation Patel found politically inconvenient. That is the documented sequence of events. Multiple sources across multiple outlets confirmed it.
The CI-12 firings did not happen in isolation. They are part of something much larger that has been happening quietly since January 2025. Many offices in the DOJ's National Security Division have lost at least half their staff through firings and resignations. The office dedicated specifically to counterterrorism has been cut deeply. About 300 FBI agents who worked mostly on national security matters have left the bureau since Trump began his second term. At least 45 were fired. More than 50 were in leadership roles.
A former senior DOJ official told CNN: "If you lose half your capacity, you lose half your ability. That in itself is a reason to be concerned."
The FBI says none of this matters because they maintain a "robust counterintelligence operation" and recorded a 35% increase in counterintelligence arrests in 2025. The bureau declined to explain the basis for those statistics when pressed. A 35% increase in arrests means nothing if the unit specifically tracking Iranian assassination plots against sitting US officials no longer has the informants to hear about those plots before they move.
The timing is the thing I cannot get around. CI-12 in 2020 monitored Iranian retaliation threats after Soleimani was killed. That was a drone strike on one general. Operation Epic Fury killed Iran's Supreme Leader, destroyed large parts of Iran's military infrastructure, and started a war. The scale of potential Iranian retaliation now is orders of magnitude larger than anything CI-12 handled in 2020. And the unit no longer has its experienced staff or its informant network.
On March 1, just days after the CI-12 firings, a gunman opened fire at a bar in downtown Austin, Texas, killing two Americans and wounding 15 others. He was wearing clothing with markings resembling the Iranian flag. The FBI is investigating it as a possible act of terrorism. I am not saying it is Iran-linked. I am saying the timing of that investigation landing on a freshly gutted unit is something nobody should be comfortable with.
My View
Opinion
I have been trying to find a charitable reading of what Patel did here. I genuinely cannot find one. The CI-12 agents were not fired for failing. They were not fired for leaking. They were not fired for any documented misconduct. They were fired because they once worked near an investigation that made Patel and Trump uncomfortable. That is it. And the consequence of that decision is that America's primary domestic counterintelligence unit against Iran was deliberately gutted two days before the war with Iran began.
The people who got fired were the same people who protected Trump from Iranian assassination plots in his first term. The same people who tracked the networks that tried to kill Pompeo and Bolton. Patel fired the people who were keeping Trump safe, to punish them for investigating Trump. That is not a partisan talking point. That is the documented sequence of events from four separate news organisations and multiple named and unnamed officials.
Representative Grace Meng has written formally to Patel demanding answers. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse called it the work of "clowns." Michael Anderson, President of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, said the dismissals "seriously undermine the FBI workforce in addressing the significant and ever-increasing threats our nation faces today." I do not think any of those reactions are overstated. I think they are the appropriate response to what is genuinely one of the most reckless security decisions made by any administration in recent memory. And it happened with almost no public attention because the Iran war itself was louder.
Bottom Line
Before launching the Iran war, Trump's FBI director fired the people whose job was protecting America from Iranian retaliation. The reason was personal revenge, not national security. That is not an allegation. It is the documented record.
Santhosh Vishwamitra is a writer and the founder of SVM Labs. He runs Inside Stories, a blog covering geopolitics and global affairs without the filter. His work on technology and writing also appears at santhoshvishwamitrablog.wordpress.com.
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