18 DEC 25 SITREP

1. Brown University Shooting Suspect Found Dead

• The suspected gunman responsible for the Brown University shooting was found dead inside a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire.
• Sources told Fox News national correspondent Brooke Taylor that the individual died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
• The shooting occurred Saturday in a campus study hall and resulted in the deaths of Ella Cook, 19, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18.
• The suspect fled campus and had been on the loose for days and may be connected to the killing of renowned MIT professor Nuno F. G. Loureiro, 47, who was found dead at his home on Monday night.

2. U.S. Regime-Change Policy and Long-Term Consequences

• U.S. foreign policy has repeatedly removed or attempted to remove governments without establishing enforceable post-conflict plans for political legitimacy, internal security, or economic stability, resulting in chronic instability rather than resolution.
• Cold War–era interventions, including the arming of proxy forces and militias, created long-term blowback as those same networks later transformed into insurgent, extremist, or anti-U.S. actors.
• Afghanistan demonstrated cumulative policy failure, beginning with early proxy warfare, followed by regime collapse, prolonged counterinsurgency, and an eventual withdrawal that left underlying conditions unresolved.
• The repeated neglect of cause-and-effect allowed power vacuums to emerge, enabling extremist groups to organize, recruit, and govern territory that previously posed no direct threat to U.S. interests.

3. U.S. Military Operations and Continued Deployment in Syria

• U.S. troops remain deployed in Syria despite Syria having no involvement in the September 11 attacks and no initiating role in hostilities against the United States.
• The original mission justification centered on defeating ISIS was fulfilled with the destruction of the group’s territorial caliphate, eliminating the primary operational rationale for a sustained ground presence.
• Remaining hostile elements were described as fragmented and localized, lacking the capability to pose a strategic threat requiring continued American troop deployment.
• The ongoing presence reflects mission continuation after objective completion, sustained by institutional momentum rather than a defined, time-bound national security requirement.

FINAL WORD

The developments reflect unresolved failures in both domestic security response and foreign policy termination. Active threats persist when decisive closure is delayed or avoided. Whether criminal investigations or military deployments, unresolved actions compound risk rather than reduce it.