Geopolitics with Ghost Ep. 107: ISIS Kill, Ebola in Congo & Alex Saab Deported - 5/19/26

Ghost returns from a week off and opens with an unplanned ferry pass by Epstein Island before diving into the week's biggest stories. Trump and Nigeria jointly eliminated ISIS's global second-in-command Abu Balal al-Manouki, the man behind the 2014 Chibok schoolgirl kidnappings. Ghost reframes the operation not as a threat to the Alliance of Sahel States but as Trump cleaning up a deep state creation, and walks through how US aid money routed through Ukraine funded ISIS proxies in Mali. A rare Ebola strain has erupted in Congo's Ituri province with the WHO declaring a public health emergency, and Ghost ties it directly to the ongoing rare earth mineral conflict and the deep state's losing battle for control of Eastern Congo. Trump publicly asked MBS, MBZ, and Qatar's emir to pause Iran strikes, confirming the Arabs never wanted war. Trump met Xi in China, Putin heads to Beijing for his 25th visit, and a Saudi/Pakistan defense pact is expanding toward Qatar and Turkey. Iraq and Pakistan signed bilateral energy transit deals with Iran, and Ghost maps out a potential Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline corridor. The episode closes with a deep dive into Alex Saab's deportation from Venezuela and PDVSA's own 2015 financial documents showing the Venezuelan government as the original victim of deep state-linked corruption.