Luminaire - As the six-month mark passes since the invasion of Caldari Prime, a new report from CONCORD claims the increasing sophistication of the pro-Federation resistance on the planet is evidence of off-world support for the rebels. The report comes on the heels of a number of attacks on high-profile targets on the planet, including the sabotage three days ago of a Tovil water treatment plant.
CONCORD has been using its assets in Luminaire to maintain a watch over the occupied planet in the hope of keeping the situation from becoming further aggravated. While neither the Federation nor the State have been particularly happy with this state of affairs, such activities are in keeping with the CONCORD charter and there is little they can do about the matter short of withdrawing from the organization. A number of sources were used in the compiling of the report, including orbital surveillance, transit records, information released by the pro-Federation resistance and Provisional Governor's office, news reports, and even reports from CONCORD agents on the ground.
"When the resistance on Caldari Prime began, attacks were mostly the work of small groups of stranded Federation military and government personnel," says CONCORD's Mouraya Shikamaa, one of the report's authors. "Attacks were guerilla-style, with homemade bombs and small arms, and generally not particularly coordinated. In the last few months, however, we've seen a number of coordinated attacks, some hundreds of miles apart, and a number of them have used military-grade explosives and energy weapons. Those kinds of attacks would be impossible without off-world help."
The report also points out the problems facing the Caldari as they try to cut off support for the resistance; Luminaire is a heavily trafficked system, with thousands of ships passing through every day. The Caldari picket fleet in that system is focused on repelling a counter attack rather than enforcing a blockade, and there are many gaps that can be used by blockade runners to slip through the defenses, a situation further compounded by the dispersed nature of the resistance.
In general, the report's conclusions suggest a complex situation that has the potential to grow even worse in the coming months. Significant concern was expressed for the fate of civilians caught in between the resistance and the Caldari occupation forces, should the conflict continue to escalate.