The October 7th attack was originally set for October 7, 2022. They pushed it back a year. So no, October 7th was not picked because it was an Israeli holiday, the date was already chosen. They did get lucky that the Nova festival was happening on that day in 2023, but it was never a part of the original plot. So why was the date chosen? Because on October 7, 2001, President George W. Bush announced Operation Enduring Freedom, and the United States began carpet bombing Kandahar. In early 2022, the first planning meeting for the attack didn’t happen in Gaza….it happened in Afghanistan. Once you understand that connection, the rest of the flood and the attack waves that are coming will start making a hell of a lot more sense. And don't let any of these Taliban fools convince you that this is over. It isn't.

October 7th was never just a Hamas story. Today I’m resharing our report, October 7th: Know Thy Enemy, because too much of the discussion around the attack still treats it as an isolated Hamas operation that began and ended in Gaza. Our investigation into the plotting found something much broader. It’s one attack in a series of attacks to come. We traced planning, training, facilitation, and relationships that extended well outside Gaza, including links involving Iranian actors, Al-Qaeda senior leadership, Taliban and Haqqani elements, and other terrorist networks, including in Syria. We also identified Hamas training activity in Afghanistan and coordination outside Gaza as the plot moved toward execution. That matters because terrorist organizations do not operate inside the neat boxes our intelligence community likes to bucket them into. Training, money, operational experience, and tactics can move across groups and across borders. If we only study what Hamas has done before, while ignoring who it is learning from and what capabilities it is building, we risk studying yesterday’s enemy. There are also larger lessons here about intelligence warning, complacency, and what happens when we become too comfortable with our own assumptions. I’ll be talking more about those lessons tomorrow on @The_Watch_Floor, including what October 7th should teach us about preparedness and avoiding the same mistakes here. But today, I want people to go back to the threat itself. Know the enemy you actually have, not the enemy you remember. Link to the full report is in the comments.