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The Duffel Brief · the free edition, Monday, Wednesday and Friday

Vol. 15 · No. 130 · Friday, 30 October 2026

Veterans

Spirit Halloween store to become pop-up ICE detention center

DHS praises seasonal retailer's expertise in occupying abandoned buildings and disappearing overnight

Army FRG unveils haunted house featuring spouses saying ‘I’m fine’

Hasan execution venue double-booked with Comic-Con

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Vol. 15 · No. 130

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Vol. 15 · No. 130 · Deployed worldwide

Friday

30 October 2026

1340 Zulu

Next edition Monday

← Front page
Intel · Page 2

US intel finds link between Taliban retaking Afghanistan, airmen putting hands in pockets

Once we start slipping there is no coming back.

Filed · 0500

An intelligence report has confirmed that the Taliban’s recent push to retake vast swaths of territory in Afghanistan is the direct result of a recent Air Force policy change that will allow airmen to put their hands in their pockets.

“Sure, Afghanistan’s incompetent military and the U.S. withdrawal are contributing factors,” said Sgt. Maj. Roy Bradman, an intelligence “But it’s clear that these nasty daggone airmen sticking their filthy meat hooks in their pockets is the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

The report was compiled by the elite Good Order and Discipline Center of Excellence (GOaD-CoE), which famously predicted the rise of the Islamic State group in 2014 after observing that a large percentage of the Iraqi army had “unsat friggin’ moos-taches.”

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