Not Your Grandfather’s Terrorist Organization: Why ISIS Has Been So Successful On the Battlefield So Far

Ben Hubbard and Eric Schmitt

August 28, 2014

Military Skill and Terrorist Technique Fuel Success of ISIS

BAGHDAD — As fighters for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria continue to seize territory, the group has quietly built an effective management structure of mostly middle-aged Iraqis overseeing departments of finance, arms, local governance, military operations and recruitment.

At the top the organization is the self-declared leader of all Muslims, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a radical chief executive officer of sorts, who handpicked many of his deputies from among the men he met while a prisoner in American custody at the Camp Bucca detention center a decade ago.

He had a preference for military men, and so his leadership team includes many officers from Saddam Hussein’s long-disbanded army.

They include former Iraqi officers like Fadel al-Hayali, the top deputy for Iraq, who once served Mr. Hussein as a lieutenant colonel, and Adnan al-Sweidawi, a former lieutenant colonel who now heads the group’s military council.

The pedigree of its leadership, outlined by an Iraqi who has seen documents seized by the Iraqi military, as well as by American intelligence officials, helps explain its battlefield successes: Its leaders augmented traditional military skill with terrorist techniques refined through years of fighting American troops, while also having deep local knowledge and contacts. ISIS is in effect a hybrid of terrorists and an army.

“These are the academies that these men graduated from to become what they are today,” said the Iraqi, a researcher named Hisham Alhashimi.

ISIS, which calls itself Islamic State, burst into global consciousness in June when its fighters seized Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, after moving into Iraq from their base in Syria.

The Iraqi Army melted away, and Mr. Baghdadi declared a caliphate, or Islamic state, that erased borders and imposed Taliban-like rule over a large territory. Not everyone was surprised by the group’s success. “These guys know the terrorism business inside and out, and they are the ones who survived aggressive counterterrorism campaigns during the surge,” said one American intelligence official, referring to the increase in American troops in Iraq in 2007. “They didn’t survive by being incompetent.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing intelligence reports.

After ISIS stormed into Mosul, one official recalled a startling phone call from a former major general in one of Mr. Hussein’s elite forces. The former general had appealed months earlier to rejoin the Iraqi Army, but the official had refused. Now the general was fighting for ISIS and threatened revenge.

“We will reach you soon, and I will chop you into pieces,” he said, according to the official, Bikhtiyar al-Qadi, of the commission that bars some former members of Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party from government posts.

Analysts Find Photos of Ukrainian Rebels Using Late-Model T-72 Tanks Found Only in the Russian Army

Jonathan Marcus

August 28, 2014

Ukraine crisis: T-72 tank shoots hole in Russian denial

Russian T-72 tanks were a regular sight in Crimea after it was annexed, but are they in eastern Ukraine too?

Russia has consistently denied sending tanks into Ukraine, arguing that any vehicles used by separatist forces there must have been captured from the Ukrainian army itself.

But now experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London have told the BBC that they have identified a Russian tank in a separatist column in eastern Ukraine that they say could only have come from across the border in Russia.

Joseph Dempsey, an IISS analyst, has studied video footage reportedly taken on 26 August in Sverdlovsk, Luhansk, in eastern Ukraine. The video shows a convoy of military vehicles.

Whilst date and location are unconfirmed, he says the operator of the convoy is apparent: flags associated with the separatist movement are clearly displayed and some vehicles feature bright green areas, a common feature of separatist armour.

The mixed convoy includes at least three T-72B1 Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) but it is the appearance of a lone, more modern T-72 variant (shown below) that is of particular significance.

This variant, distinguished by the prominent Kontakt-5 Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA) arrangement - the boxes on the turret front - is commonly referred to by Western sources as the T-72BM.

It is operated by the Russian Army in large numbers, but crucially it is not known to have been exported or operated outside of Russia.

'Ambiguous war'

ISIS Releases Video of Capture of Syria’s Tabqa Air Base and Executions of Syrian Soldiers

Bill Roggio

August 28, 2014

Islamic State documents takeover of Syrian airbase

The Islamic State released photographs that document its recent takeover of the Syrian Air Force’s base in Tabqa in Raqqah province.

The photographs, which were published yesterday on the Internet, show the aftermath of the Islamic State’s latest conquest against the Syrian military. Islamic State fighters overran the Tabqa airbase last weekend. [See LWJ report, Islamic State fighters assault last Syrian stronghold in Raqqah.]

Tabqa was the last bastion for Syrian military forces in Raqqah province, which is now fully under the control of the Islamic State.

The photographs from Tabqa show what appear to be the bodies of dozens of Syrian soldiers who were killed during the fighting. The Islamic State also provides images of several Syrian soldiers, including at least one pilot, who were captured during the assault.

One photograph shows seven captured soldiers kneeling on the ground as Islamic State fighters shoot them from behind. The Islamic State has previously released similar photographs of Iraqi soldiers who were executed by the jihadist group.

Additionally, the Islamic State published photographs of various weapons systems and munitions that were captured or destroyed during the takeover of the airbase. At least three MiG fighters, as well as anti-aircraft missiles and other weapons systems, tanks, and anti-aircraft guns, were seized or destroyed by the Islamic State.

Photographs from Tabqa

Islamic State fighters stand on top of a tank as the bodies of dead Syrian soldiers lie in the foreground:

An Islamic State fighter brandishes a knife in front of a group of captured Syrian soldiers:

What Territory in Syria and Iraq Does ISIS Control?

Kathy Gilsinan

August 28, 2014

ISIS territory in Iraq and Syria tends to be described as “swaths.” The estimated size of these swaths, which ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in June, varies widely in reports, from 12,000 square miles—”an area the size of Belgium,” per The Wall Street Journal—to 35,000 square miles, or “an area the size of Jordan,” as George Packer wrote this week in The New Yorker. Whatever else the caliphate is, by these estimates of territorial size at least, it’s starting to look more and more like a state. Packer continued:

The self-proclaimed caliphate stretches from the newly conquered towns along the Syrian-Turkish border, through its de-facto capital of Raqqa, in northern Syria, across the obliterated Iraqi border into Mosul, Tikrit, and Falluja, down to the farming towns south of Baghdad—roughly a third of the territory of both [Iraq and Syria].

In The Economist in June, that looked like this:

The Economist's map shows where ISIS is present in, controlling, or contesting territory—a broad depiction of what the 'caliphate' might be. Under that definition, this image would not have changed much since June despite recent gains by ISIS; where it has acquired more territory (as in Syria's Raqqa province, where this week it seized the last of the government-controlled military bases), ISIS was in many cases already shown as “present” in the map above. The difference now is that ISIS has won more battles, and as a result has more infrastructure and resources to fund and defend what it now calls the Islamic State.

U.S. Should Bomb ISIS ... and Assad

By Michael Weiss

Last summer, as President Obama was strolling along the White House grounds with his national security advisor, Denis McDonough, contemplating airstrikes on the regime of Bashar al-Assad for its use of chemical weapons in the Ghouta district of Damascus, everyone who until then had professed confusion or ignorance as to the complicated nature of the Syria conflict became an expert on the subject overnight. A special focus was on the anti-Assad rebels’ perceived shortcomings and alleged extremist orientation. If America was to have another war in the Middle East, our media establishment would be damned if it was to be on “slam-dunk” pretenses or in the service of inscrutable beneficiaries. Articles were duly produced attempting to link the nominally US-backed Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to terrorists – no matter if the timeline or the evidence got a bit fudged in the rush to press. Questions both hard- and tender-headed were asked, not least by congressmen with tetchy constituencies. If we further armed these proxies, wouldn’t the weapons fall into the hands of terrorists? Why wasn’t the poorly-armed and poorly-trained FSA waging a multi-front effort against Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS, now IS), the regime, Hezbollah, the shabiha, Iranian-built National Defense Forces, and Iranian-built Iraqi Shia militias? If we weakened Assad, would the rebels take Damascus – and if so, then what? Could we afford to see “another Benghazi” occur in a country where we no longer had an embassy or consulate? How could we weaken Assad, even in an “unbelievably small” manner and if only once to teach him a lesson, when he had “formidable” air defense systems capable of downing American aircraft?

The very arguments trotted out against the Obama administration’s seemingly imminent intervention were in fact the very inventions of his administration, which had spent two years drumming them in to a more complacent and accommodating press, then eager to justify the standing policy of non-intervention. But as the policy appeared to change, so too did the urgency of the facts – or, at any rate, the information. Luckily, Vladimir Putin came along with a deal to save everyone from themselves. Not a single shot was fired. This is why there have been more chemical attacks, Assad’s chemical production facilities are still intact, and no one really knows for sure if all of his sarin or tabun stockpiles have been destroyed.

Well, summer is once again drawing to a close, Syria’s death toll has about doubled, and Obama is once again strolling the White House grounds in deep, photo-opped thought with McDonough. Only this time, the prospective war on their minds is against the IS, which, in the intervening year, has made a staggering conquest of territory, "slightly larger" than the United Kingdom, running from the Levant to Mesopotamia.

The IS is the most well-financed and successful terrorist organization in history; it operates, according to military experts, more as a terrorist army run by a functioning terrorist state. Its fighters range between 10,000 and 80,000 in number, depending on who’s counting – and everyone is. It commands a corps of foreign volunteers drawn collectively from a host of nations, including the United States, Britain, France and Belgium, the domestic security services of which are said to be stretched trying to monitor them all. Assuming that these foreign-born jihadists have not destroyed their passports, and assuming that Turkey’s border control is as lax as I remember it, there is every expectation that a few will return to their countries of origin and continue their holy war at home. In fact, they don’t even have to return from Syria to make the IS’s presence felt in the West: this new, too-extreme-for-al-Qaeda franchise can easily inspire or radicalize “lone wolves” sympathetic to the revolutionary romanticism it claims to espouse. YouTube sermons of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or the latest takfiri hurrahs on Twitter may be all that is needed to have a disaffected teenager, whom everyone will later remember as the pleasant, fun-loving sort, decide to set something off in his native city. Former deputy CIA director Mike Morell said that he “would not be surprised” if an “ISIS member showed up in a mall in the United States tomorrow with an AK-47 and killed a number of Americans.” I would not be surprised if Baghdadi already relishes that idea.

Officials have deemed the IS more of a menace to US national security than al-Qaeda was before 9/11. The threat quotient was upped dramatically last week with the gruesome videoed beheading of James Foley, and the promised sequel performance with another captive US journalist, Steven Sotloff. A female American aid worker is also being held by the group.

Why Obama Backed off More ISIS Strikes: His Own Team Couldn’t Agree on a Syria Strategy

BYJosh RoginEli Lake

08.28.14

Why Obama Backed off More ISIS Strikes: His Own Team Couldn’t Agree on a Syria Strategy

After lots of bluster about striking ISIS on Syria, President Obama threw cold water on the idea Thursday, disappointing those who wanted him to take the fight to ISIS in Syria.

After a week of talk of eliminating the "cancer" of ISIS, President Obama said Thursday that he was not planning to significantly expand the war against the Islamic extremist movement anytime soon.

His remarks came after days of heated debate inside the top levels of his own national security bureaucracy about how, where, and whether to strike ISIS in Syria. But those deliberations – which included a bleak intelligence assessment of America's potential allies in Syria -- failed to produce a consensus battle plan. And so Obama, who has long been reluctant to enter into the Syrian conflict, told reporters Thursday that “we don’t have a strategy yet” for confronting ISIS on a regional level. 

Those inside the administration advocating for going after ISIS in both Iraq and Syria were sorely disappointed – and lamented their boss's lack of urgency in rooting out a threat that only days before was being described in near-apocalyptic terms.

“Senior strategists in the U.S. government have been working hard all week to gather multiple options that the president had asked for to strike ISIS in Syria. There was a deep rooted belief among many -- especially among military circles -- that the ISIS threat can’t be kicked down the road, that it needs to be confronted now, and in a holistic way,” said one Obama administration official who works on the Middle East. “This press conference is going to lead to even more doubt by those that thought that this White House was ready to take meaningful action against ISIS across the board.”

Obama addressed the White House press corps Thursday afternoon only minutes after personally chairing a meeting of his National Security Council, his top cabinet members and national security staffers. The meeting was the culmination of an intense week-long process that included series of lower level meetings and at last one Principals’ Committee that officials described as an effort to convince Obama to expand his air war against ISIS in Iraq to Syria as well.

The President said that although he had ordered up options for striking ISIS in Syria, the administration’s priority was shoring up the integrity of Iraq, instead. Syria would have to wait. He also said he would send Secretary of State John Kerry to the region because “We don’t have a strategy yet,” to confront ISIS on a regional level.

To many outside the administration who have worked on Syria and the ISIS problem, Obama’s decision not to decide on a broader course of action will have negative implications for the war against ISIS. The administration raised expectations about altering its three-year policy of avoiding intervention in Syria, before Obama dashed those expectations Thursday.

“One has to wonder what sort of signal this administration is sending to ISIS by using tough rhetoric on one hand and then contravening what top officials just said,” said a former Pentagon official who served in Iraq. “It’s not just demoralizing to those who want to stop ISIS in its tracks, but ISIS is just going to act with greater impunity now if they believe they got a free pass. Every single ISIS leader was watching that.”

WAR AND THE ISLAMIC STATE

by Fortuna's Corner

August 25, 2014 

http://20committee.com/2014/ 08/24/war-and-the-islamic- state/

The barbaric murder this week of the American journalist James Foley by a British jihadist has served as a tragic reminder of the gravity of the global threat posed by the Salafi jihad movement. For the first time in years, the Western public, seeing the horrific images of Foley’s butchering, has been confronted with the reality of our enemy. Those who thought the death of Osama bin Laden three years ago signaled the beginning of the end of his vile cause, a view championed by the Obama administration, were naively mistaken. Bin Laden’s demise was, as Churchill said of British victory at El Alamein, “the end of the beginning” of the struggle against the Salafi jihad movement.

And a movement it is, rather than an organization; those who apply Western, military-style organizational charts to it, in the manner beloved by intelligence analysts everywhere, are and have always been wrong. It shares an ideology but operates differently depending where it goes: there is tactical flexibility nested in severe ideological rigidity. Al-Qa’ida (AQ) never had a monopoly on the global jihad movement, and its slow, predictable decline under the uninspired leadership of Ayman al-Zawahiri has opened the door to the even more extreme jihadists of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS). While AQ is far from dead – its Yemen-based franchise in particular, AQ in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), remains very dangerous – it’s evident that the center of gravity in the global jihad movement has shifted to the fanatics of the Islamic State and their self-proclaimed Caliphate.

The struggle between AQ and the group now calling itself IS goes back a decade in Iraq, beginning with Sunni resistance to the U.S. invasion in 2003, and, given the gradual decline of bin Laden’s faction, it was perhaps inevitable that the even more murderous IS would win out. Its message of uncompromising holy war against all enemies, from “infidels” outside the Muslim world to the many “apostates” within it, appeals to the basest human instincts and is intoxicating to angry young men who pine for murder, martyrdom, and glory. IS embraces the extreme Salafi vision – they are takfiris to use the proper term – of jihad for jihad’s sake, a fanatical fantasy of “pure” Islam that invariably kills more Muslims than “infidels.” The takfiri tendency lies in the DNA of the Salafi jihad movement, and has burst forth murderously on many occasions, most horrifically in Algeria in the 1990s, where the local AQ affiliate, the Armed islamic Group (GIA), was expelled from the “official” movement for its indiscriminate killing, just as IS was recently. The only difference now is that the world has noticed, with horror, the mass killings of innocents perpetrated by IS murderers in Iraq. True “shock and awe” in Iraq has been delivered by masked fanatics rallied around a black flag, not the U.S. military.

I’ve watched the global jihad movement closely for years, both as a security practitioner and a scholar, and I’ve analyzed its metastasis as it’s moved from region to region. I’ve written books about its strategy and operations as well asits growth in the 1990s into a worldwide phenomenon. Since 9/11, I’ve witnessed two American presidents wage war against the global jihad movement in a rather similar manner, contrary to much public fuss about the differences between Bush and Obama-style counterterrorism, and from the outset I’ve maintained that the U.S. approach is deeply flawed and doomed to fail. My sharper critiques of American counterterrorism strategy have been largely confined to secret and off-record discussions inside the government, within the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Intelligence Community (IC), as well as with key Allies. As I am now leaving government employ, I am free to speak my mind. This is a start.

Let me state unambiguously that this is a war that the West must win. Our Salafi jihadist enemy is a threat to virtually every country on earth, including Western ones. Their vision is fanatical and uncompromising. They are a foe who must be killed off through attrition. There is no room for negotiation or dialogue. We must face the reality that our struggle against these fanatics will last decades, not years; everybody currently waging this war will retire before the job is done.

WHITE HOUSE CYBER SECURITY CZAR BRAGS ABOUT HIS LACK OF TECHNICAL EXPERTISE

by Fortuna's Corner 

August 25, 2014 ·

White House Cyber Security Czar Brags About His Lack of Technical Expertise

Michael Daniel is the White House’s cyber security coordinator, the man who “leads the interagency development of national cyber security strategy and policy” for the president. And in a recent interview with GovInfoSecurity, he argued that his lack of technical expertise gave him an advantage in doing that job.

“You don’t have to be a coder in order to really do well in this position,” Daniel said, when asked if his job required knowledge of the technology behind information security. “In fact, actually, I think being too down in the weeds at the technical level could actually be a little bit of a distraction.”

“You can get taken up and enamored with the very detailed aspects of some of the technical solutions,” he explained, arguing that “the real issue is looking at the broad strategic picture.”

As Princeton computer scientist (and, full disclosure, my former advisor) Ed Felten points out, it’s hard to imagine senior policymakers with responsibility for other technical subjects making this kind of claim. Imagine a White House economic advisor arguing that experience in the weeds of economic research would be a distraction, an attorney general making that claim about time in a courtroom, or a surgeon general bragging about never having set foot in an operating room.

In most parts of government, it’s considered a major asset if senior policymakers have experience in the weeds of the topics they work on. The surgeon general has an MD, as does the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The head of the National Institutes of Health has a PhD in chemistry and did groundbreaking research on the human genome. All three members of the Council of Economic Advisors have PhDs in economics, as does the head of the Federal Reserve. The attorney general has a law degree, as do both of his deputies.

In contrast, Daniel has degrees in public policy and spent 17 years at the Office of Management and Budget. He did some policy work on cyber security there, but by his own admission has little experience programming computers or securing computer networks from attack.

Experience in the weeds of a technical subject is hugely valuable in senior policymaking jobs

Daniel says that his most important skill is “being able to analyze and break down really complicated public policy problems and present them in a manner that makes them more amenable to analysis.” That’s obviously an important skill, and it’s one that many computer programmers lack. You wouldn’t want to give Daniel’s job to a random Google coder.

But at the same time, it would be helpful for Daniel to have some experience in the weeds of computer security. Washington is full of defense contractors peddling alarmist stories in order to sell their overpriced cyber security “solutions.” To distinguish genuine threats from trumped up ones, it’s hugely valuable to have spent some time in the cyber security trenches.

APPROACHING AN ISRAELI RED-LINE: ISLAMIC MILITANTS SEIZE KEY BORDER CROSSING NEAR GOLAN HEIGHTS; OVERRUN TOWN IN SOUTHERN JORDAN

by Fortuna's Corner 

August 27, 2014 

http://www.fortunascorner.wordpress.com

Approaching An Israeli Red-Line: Islamic Militants Seize Border Crossing Near Golan Heights; Overrun Southern Town In Jordan

“Islamic militants battling the Syrian government seized control of the Quneitra Border Crossing — between Syria and the Golan Heights,” according to an Israeli military spokesman. Among the fighters, were members of the al-Nusra Front, a Syrian-rebel group with ties to al Qaeda,” the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) spokesman added. While largely symbolic at this point, the town itself is of little strategic value, “the takeover represents a new dynamic in a civil war long feared not only for its deadly effects inside Syria; but, for threatening to widen into a destabilizing regional conflict,” CNN’s Ben Wedemen reports this evening.

“Essentially, you now have the Nusra Front facing off just a couple of hundred meters from the Israeli Army,” Mr. Wedeman said, adding that United Nations peace keepers are stationed between the two.”

Allen Cowell, writing on The New York Times mobile website this evening says this move “could bring Islamist forces within 200 yards of territory controlled by Israel. Yaakov Amidror, a former National Security Advisor, said reports of the Nusra Front taking control of the Quenitra crossing “could be very significant…if the group managed to link that position to its stronghold in Dara’a, in southern Syria, and other areas,”

And, according to The Daily Beast, “White House officials briefed members of the U.S. Senate…in a classified briefing that jihadists have tweeted photos and messages claiming to have seized a key southern town in Jordan. The concern expressed by the White House officials was that “Jordan could not repel a full assault from ISIS on its own at this point>” “They [Jordan], will ask for as much help as they can get,” according to other senior U.S. officials who were present for the briefings.

“Israel has also reportedly told U.S. officials that Israeli Defense Forces are prepared to take military action to save Jordan.”

None of this is good news. We have a metastasizing Islamic crisis on our hands that is on the verge of expanding into a regional conflict….and, this POTUS has yet another fund-raiser scheduled for Thursday. Maybe he can get in at least 9 holes as well. Striking against a piece of this Islamic tumor won’t work — you have to address the disease holistically. But, this POTUS has no strategy and….no clue. V/R, RCP

THE ISIS LAPTOP OF DOOM: LESSONS FOR BUBONIC PLAGUE BOMBS, MISSIVES ON USING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

by Fortuna's Corner

August 29, 2014 

http://www.fortunascorner.wordpress.com

The ISIS Laptop Of Doom: Lessons For Making Bubonic Plague Bombs, And Missives On Using Weapons Of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Still not convinced that ISIS is a threat to the West and America? Harold Doornbos, and Jenna Moussa, in an August 28, 2014 article on the website Foreign Policy, reveal that “buried on a Dell computer recently seized in Syria — were lessons on making bubonic plague bombs, and missives on weapons of mass destruction (WMD).” According to the two authors, a Syrian rebel commander, Abu Ali, “took the laptop this year from an ISIS hideout.” The laptop was captured after Ali’s rebels attacked an ISIS hideout in the Syrian province of Idlib, close to the border with Turkey — as part of a larger anti-ISIS offensive occurring at the time. “We found the laptop and a power-cord in a room,” Ali said. “I took it with me; but, I have no clue if it still works, or contains anything interesting.”

But, the laptop soon disclosed just how evil and threatening ISIS desires to be. “Buried in hidden files,” on the laptop’s hard-drive, was 146 gigabytes of material, containing a total of 35,347 files and 2,367 folders,” wrote Mr. Doornbos and Ms. Moussa. Abu Ali allowed the two Foreign Policy journalists to copy the files — which included documents in French, English and Arabic — onto an external hard drive.”

Mr. Doornblos and Ms. Moussa write that “the laptop’s contents turned out to be a treasure trove of documents that contain the ideological justifications for these militant Islamic groups; and, practical training on how to carry out the Islamic State’s deadly campaigns.” These hidden files also contained “videos of Osama bin Laden and manuals on how to make bombs, instructions for stealing cars, and lessons on how to use disguises…in order to avoid getting arrested while traveling from one jihadi hotspot to another.” More than just grandiose musings, Mr. Doornbos and Ms. Moussa write that “the laptop’s owner was teaching himself about the use of biological weaponry, in preparation for a potential attack — that would have shocked the world.”

Foreign Policy adds that “the information on the laptop makes clear that its owner is a Tunisian national who joined ISIS in Syria; and, had studied chemistry and physics at two universities in northeast Tunisia.” “Even more disturbing,” they write, “is how he planned to use that education: The ISIS laptop contains a 19-page document in Arabic on how to develop biological weapons; and, how to weaponize bubonic plague from infected animals.” “The advantage of a biological weapon is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge,” the document noted. “Use small grenades with the virus and throw them in closed areas like metros, or soccer stadiums, or entertainment centers,” the 19-page document on biological weapons advises.” “Best to do it near air conditioning. It can also be used in suicide operations.”

Mr. Doornbos and Ms. Moussa add that “the document includes instructions on how to test the weaponized disease safely, before it is used in a terrorist attack.” “When the microbe is injected into small mice, the symptoms of the disease should start to appear within 24 hours,” the document stated.

“The laptop also contained a 26-page fatwa, or Islamic ruling on the usage of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).” “If Muslims cannot defeat the kafir, [unbelievers] in a different way, it is permissible to use WMD,” states the fatwa by Saudi cleric Nasir al-Fahd, who is currently imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. “Even if it kills all of them; and, wipes them and their descendants off the face of the Earth.”

Mr. Doornbos and Ms. Moussa emphasize that “nothing on the ISIS laptop suggests the jihadists already have a WMD; and, any jihadi organization contemplating a bio-terrorist attack will face many difficulties.” “The real difficulty in all of these weapons…[is] to actually have a workable distribution system that will kill a lot of people,” said Magnus Ranstorp, Research Director for the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defense College. “But, to produce quite scary weapons is certainly within [the Islamic State's] capabilities.”

“In short,” write Mr. Doornbos and Ms. Moussa warn, “the longer the ‘caliphate’ exists, the more likely it is that members with a science background will come up with something horrible.”

The Islamic State's Dangerous Influence in Asia

Hannah Suh

August 29, 2014 

Source Link

"While the administration has rightly focused on the Middle East, it should also pay attention to the ripple effects of IS in the Asia-Pacific region."

In places across Indonesia, small collections of political Islamists have “openly pledged their allegiance” to the extremist terrorist group, the Islamic State (IS). One of those who have voiced their support is Abu Bakar Bashir, the founder of the extremist Indonesian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) responsible for the deadly bombings during the 2000s, including the Bali nightclub bombing in 2002, the Marriott bombing in 2003, the Australian Embassy bombing in 2004, the Bali II bombing in 2005, and the Jakarta hotel bombings in 2009. While the spillover of IS into the Asia-Pacific region is unsurprising, this troubling yet under-recognized trend has serious implications for the region as well as the United States.

Southeast Asia’s history of homegrown terrorist groups heighten concerns of IS’ spillover effect. The demographics of the region itself contribute to the fear of a revival of militant Islam—nearly 62% of the world’s Muslim population lives in the Asia-Pacific—Indonesia being the world’s largest Muslim population, with209 million or 87.2% of the population identifying as Muslim. In the case of Indonesia, although the number of Indonesians joining IS abroad is relatively small, the return of these experienced fighters to their homeland is a larger security threat with serious ramifications. These jihadists could “rekindle the domestic terrorist threat by developing new connections with well-funded, armed, and organized jihadi groups in the Middle East,” according to Sri Yunanto, an adviser to Indonesia’s national counterterrorism agency. As president-elect Joko Widodo transitions into office, he must be cognizant of the security threat and act decisively by identifying it among the most important issues of his administration’s policy agenda.

While not much has been reported on IS’ spillover into other Southeast Asian countries, the same causes of concern in Indonesia apply to the rest of the region. With the drawdown of U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines, Manila may be more vulnerable to terrorism. Similar to Indonesia, if members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a Philippine-based Al Qaeda offshoot terrorist group, traveled to Syria or Iraq to fight and returned home, the MILF could be revitalized. Despite a March 2014 agreement ending 45 years of conflict between the Philippine government and the MILF, peace is tenuous. Rogue MILF troops and Islamist militant groups continue to threaten to reignite religious and separatist tensions.

A U.S. MILITARY FORCE OPTIMIZED FOR A POTUS W/O A STRATEGY

by Fortuna's Corner

August 29, 2014 

General Dempsey Attacks, Defeats Army of Straw Men in FP Article

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and principal military adviser to President Obama, has written an article for Foreign Policy magazine, stating his view of the military’s role in America’s foreign affairs.

Written in a slick, corporate-sounding, richly euphemistic style, the average reader may be left wondering just what, precisely, the point of the article is. Who could disagree with such comments as “a new century [has] brought new dangers,” or, “In each region of the world, we face serious—but very different—security challenges”?

A Free Beacon translation of General Dempsey’s bureaucratic Newspeak reveals the plain meaning of some of the General’s more circuitous statements.

For example, America’s senior military officer is not very bullish on the prospect of actually using America’s military:

Just like after 1945, we now confront a situation in which the U.S. military is shrinking as calls for our leadership around the globe are expanding. With the opportunity cost of each of our actions increasing, we must be judicious in the application of military force and seize innovative ways to use it to best effect.

Translation: Despite the fact that many believe that the U.S. military drawdown after 1945 was a strategic disaster, leading to—among other negative consequences—the near-loss of South Korea in 1950, I’m totally okay with reaping a peace dividend in a world without peace! And by being “judicious” and “innovative” in our use of military force, I mean that we shouldn’t use the military much, especially where fighting might be involved.

In the Middle East and North Africa, centuries-old religious, ethnic, and tribal tensions challenge state authority and fuel violence. As the region wobbles along a fault line extending from Beirut to Damascus to Baghdad, there are no easy solutions for steadying it. In this environment, the traditional use of military power rarely yields expected results.

Translation: I do not think the U.S. military should be deployed anywhere between Morocco and Iran, inclusive. At least not “traditionally”—with guns and bombs and stuff.

In Europe, threats from Russia on the eastern flank and extremist groups on the southern flank are growing as countries trend toward parochialism at home. Russia’s activities in Ukraine are giving the world a disturbing image of the hybrid nature of military aggression in the 21st century. Europe is approaching an inflection point at which decisions to favor narrow interests or greater unity will transform the region.

Translation: Things in Europe are terrible. We should probably not get involved in that coming “inflection point,” whatever that may mean. I don’t even know what that means!

There’s certainly not a one-size-fits-all solution. But there are some common best practices that we should follow. First, wherever possible, we should view problems through a regional lens — not one country, one group, and one crisis at a time. Second, we should carefully integrate all our instruments of power, making sure that our policies leverage each instrument to its best use.

Translation: The military is an “instrument” that has not been used well recently. Therefore America should probably not use it as much as we have been.

To deal with our most pressing security challenges, the U.S. military will not be the only tool we use, nor should it be the principal one in most circumstances. Often the military is best used in a supporting role — especially if we want to achieve meaningful and enduring results. And we should “go it alone” only in the rarest of circumstances.

Translation: Seriously, don’t use the military. And if you do, definitely don’t put it in charge of anything. Those folks at the IRS seem pretty ruthless—maybe it’s time for them to get more play?

Our force will be smaller, so it must be more agile, more lethal, and postured to project power wherever needed. Of course, agility has its limits. The size of the military matters. Our nation’s elected leaders must ensure the armed forces have the resources they need to protect and promote the nation’s security interests.

Translation: Rather than aggressively insist on the need for a larger defense budget, I am happy to negotiate with myself in public in the hopes of currying favor with those who hope to take all my money away.

The emerging security environment also demands that we update our approach to building partner capacity. Armored divisions and bomber wings can blunt our enemies, but they cannot single-handedly preserve the peace. To do that, we need to construct stronger security partnerships with like-minded nations, so that all can contribute to the collective defense.

Translation: Rather than fight, we should be training, say, small African nations to defend themselves. The military can do some stuff—just so long as it doesn’t involve actually fighting, which as we all know doesn’t work. Give partnership a chance!

While the general gets no credit for plain speaking, he, like his commander in chief, excels at the creation and destruction of rhetorical straw men.

For example:

Some suggest that grand strategy is too difficult — that the grand strategies of the past were only discernible in hindsight, not the result of careful forethought and planning. Despite cynics’ arguments that grand strategy is a thing of the past, it is critical today — when calls for U.S. leadership and military power shift from crisis to crisis.

Needless to say, everyone debating American foreign policy who believes we should not have a coherent strategy for dealing with the world must be feeling the sting of these remarks.

General Dempsey’s insistence that military force cannot be considered in isolation from economic and diplomatic suasion suggests that there are those in the non-lunatic community who believe that it can be so isolated. This repeated emphasis is reminiscent of President Obama’s complaint in April that there are people in Washington who think that “each and every time a country violates one of those norms [of proper international behavior] the United States should go to war.” This is a belief held by approximately zero serious people.

President Obama and Chairman Dempsey are well suited for each other. Neither man has faith in the U.S. military.

We Have Military Research to Thank for Ebola Vaccines Civilian-military collaboration has lots of benefits

Source Link

Frank L. Smith III researches and teaches technology and international security at the University of Sydney. 

Tragically, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa painfully reminds us of the fragile state of health infrastructure in poor countries—as well as of the seemingly limited impact of global health governance.

Though cold comfort, many of the experimental drugs that could help defeat Ebola also remind us of the benefits of military and civilian biodefense R&D.

Biodefense efforts try to limit the damage from biological weapons. The Soviet Union investigated Ebola as a biological weapon during the Cold War, although the Soviets didn’t mass produce the virus as a weapon—in contrast to smallpox and other pathogens.

Reportedly, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo also tried to acquire samples of Ebola in 1993 as part of its doomed bioterrorism campaign. Shortly after the first natural cases of Ebola occurred in 1976, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases—USAMRIID, the military’s main biodefense research facility—started to look into countermeasures to this viral hemorrhagic fever.

One important question about biodefense is whether R&D to combat biological warfare and bioterrorism can help to combat naturally occurring outbreaks, as well. It’s not uncommon for military technologies to spin off into commercial applications.

Not surprisingly, this “synergy thesis” has its critics. They argue that biodefense distorts public health priorities and may even allow the military to hide an offensive biological weapons program, since some of the knowledge and technology involved is dual use.

It’s doubtful that the U.S. military is building biological weapons, given its preference for kinetic warfare. Plus, some investments in biodefense may pay future dividends in the fight against Ebola.

For instance, USAMRIID and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, along with the Public Health Agency of Canada, supported development of the experimental Ebola drug Zmapp. Granted, Zmapp might not actually work and, even if it does, we just ran out of it for the time being.

But if we were to manufacture this drug in bulk, mass production may involve the Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently established to help build capacity for biodefense.

Currently, most funding for biodefense comes from civilian sponsors in the United States, not the military. Aside from Zmapp, most of their therapies for other dangerous pathogens—like Marburg virus and Staphylococcal enterotoxin B—get funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Again, Zmapp may fail. Most experimental drugs do. But other medical countermeasures for Ebola relate directly to investments in biodefense, as well. For example, research into one Ebola vaccine began when the U.S. National Institutes of Health asked a Canadian company to reapply technology it had developed for anthrax to also fight Ebola.

Several other potential therapies for Ebola—such as TKM-Ebola and AVI-7537—also resulted from private collaboration with USAMRIID. So did the GSK/NIAID Ebola vaccine that authorities have just approved for human trials.

Therefore, what little hope there is for vaccines and therapies against naturally occurring Ebola depends in part on research and development for biodefense.

We should welcome these synergies and spinoffs. That being said, new drugs are unlikely to provide quick or easy solutions to the current outbreak.

Instead, the current fight against Ebola now depends on contact tracing, quarantine and similar public health strategies that date back to the 19th century.

At top—An Ebola treatment training exercise in Belgium. AP photo/Olivier Matthys

RUSSIAN HACKERS SAID TO LOOT GIGABYTES OF BIG BANK DATA

by Fortuna's Corner 

August 29, 2014

Bloomberg – Update: Russian Hackers Said to Loot Gigabytes of Big Bank Data

Russian hackers attacked JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and at least four other banks this month in a coordinated assault that resulted in the loss of gigabytes of customer data, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

At least one of the banks has linked the breach to Russian state-sponsored hackers, said one of the people. The FBI is investigating whether the attack could have been in retaliation for U.S.-imposed sanctions on Russia, said the second person, who also asked not to be identified, citing the continuing investigation.

The attack led to the theft of account information that could be used to drain funds, according to a U.S. official and another person briefed by law enforcement who said the victims may have included European banks. Hackers also took sensitive information from employee computers.

Most thefts of financial information involve retailers or personal computers of consumers. Stealing data from big banks is rare, because they have elaborate firewalls and security systems.

Securing the Net

JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank, said today it took additional steps to safeguard sensitive and confidential information. The company will contact any customers that might have been affected, though it hasn’t seen unusual levels of fraud, Patricia Wexler, a spokeswoman for New York-based JPMorgan, said in an e-mail. She declined to give examples of the firm’s stepped-up security.

Russian Troops

The incidents occurred at a low point in relations between the U.S. and Russia. Russian troops continue to mass on the Ukrainian border even after U.S. and European nations have hurt the Russian economy with sanctions. Russia has a history of using criminals and other proxies to hit back at adversaries in cyberspace.

“The way the Russians do it, to the extent we can see into the process, is they encourage certain targets,” said James Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “The Russians typically keep open the options to do something more, and the question now is what would trigger that and what would our response be.”

Investigators have determined that the attacks were routed through computers in Latin America and other regions via servers used by Russian hackers, according to people familiar with the probe.

Zero-Day Flaw

THE C-130: FEEDING THE NEEDFUL BEAST

Peter Munson

August 28, 2014

http://warontherocks.com/2014/08/the-c130-feeding-the-needful-beast/

War is a needful beast, consuming vast amounts of things. Munitions. Construction materials for protecting fragile bodies from munitions. Or to build boardwalks and nail salons that protected minds from the war going on outside the construction material. Vehicles and other equipment. Petroleum, oil, and lubricants — lots of them — to feed the vehicles and equipment. And people. People to run the vehicles and equipment, to fire the munitions, to walk on the boardwalk, to absorb the munitions (hence the term “bullet sponge”), and to eat — MREs and water, if you are a bullet sponge. TGI Friday’s if you are a board walker. Add food and water to the list.

The business of feeding the beast is called logistics. The staff types puff, “Amateurs talk strategy, but professionals talk logistics.” These professionals dream of iron mountains and bringing a little slice of America to the world — such as obesity, for example. They call this being expeditionary. One example of being expeditionary is that troops at a fixed base somewhere in Iraq once only could buy Lays potato chips at the exchange because the convoy full of Pringles was destroyed by insurgents. A Marine infantry unit kept watch over the convoy to the laconic midday accompaniment of insurgent mortar fire until Graves Registration or some such unit could arrive to prise from the cabs of the trucks the charred bodies of contract drivers who gave their lives for Pringles. Professionals call Pringles “Class VI,” defined as personal-demand items. When amateurs hear Class VI, they think of booze, since that is what the booze store on base is called. Only in the States though. There was no alcohol allowed in Iraq or Afghanistan. That would detract from the war effort.

War is needful of things and the Class VI store is needful of customers so, during the Korean War, the staff types determined that the best thing for that would be an aircraft designed from the ground up as a combat transport. Thus was born the C-130, which first flew on August 23, 1954, 60 years ago this week. The C-130 was to war as blood doping was to a cyclist’s career. They both contributed significantly to expanding the frontiers of the sport. Anyone who has been to war after Korea has probably ridden somewhere on a C-130 and almost certainly has seen a C-130 landing at (or at least headed for) some small, obscure patch of dirt or sand where before only trucks or helicopters could go.

The C-130 is an amazing aircraft and those of us who flew it developed a relationship with it approaching friendship or perhaps even love. We talked to the planes, patted them on the nose before getting in the saddle, petted the glare shield between their ears during difficult rides, noted their temperaments, and cooed and cajoled them into doing things they didn’t really want to do long after they should have been done doing such things. But like once-magnificent, ever-proud steeds, they kept on at it into the arthritic throes of age, until a new generation came along to follow the trail they blazed.

The two generations conducted their relief-in-place during another era of American wars. The youngsters came in fresh and eager. A decade later, they have aged well beyond their years, ridden far harder than the staff types ever expected. But, like their forebears, they are a proud and reliable lot. Old, or new, a C-130 at work is a practical and purposeful thing. Its collection of systems make a symphony of hums, rattles, roars, and hisses while it goes about its business. This collection of systems has enabled the C-130 to do all manner of things, and do them well: landing or air dropping troops and cargo, refueling jets and helicopters and now a strange hybrid of the two, turning night into day with hours’ worth of flares, and even loosing ordnance on the heads of unsuspecting enemies.

The Great Myth: World War I Was No Accident

By Zachary Keck

August 30, 2014

World War I wasn’t an inadvertent war but the result of deliberate German state policy. 

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1, formerly called the Great War.

Not surprisingly, this has brought all sorts of stories and op-eds discussing the disastrous events that killed some 16 million people and wounded an additional 21 million others.

To this day, most observers continue to claim that World War I was an inadvertent war: that is, that none of the countries involved particularly wanted war but war came nonetheless. Some claim it was the major armament programs and offensive military doctrines adopted by European countries in the run-up to the war that made WWI inevitable. Others claim it was the hypernationalistic populaces that caused the war. Still others blame the tight alliances that European nations formed in the years prior to WWI, which created an environment in which the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by an anarchist could plunge the entire continent into a bloody war. And then there are those that blame the situation on the irreconcilable interests of a rising Germany and a declining Great Britain. Regardless of the particular explanation invoked, most seem to agree that the war was an accident.

More troubling, recent years have seen numerous individuals comparing early 20th century Europe to the Asia-Pacific today. Perhaps most memorably, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, at the World Economic Forum earlier this year, made the analogy that the Sino-Japanese rivalry today bears remarkable resemblance to the English-German rivalry prior to WWI. In this case, Abe was trying to portray Chinese aggression and its military buildup as pushing the region to war.

Others have compared the budding U.S.-China rivalry today to the ill-fated one between Great Britain and Germany a century ago. For example, writing in the Boston Globe this week, College Station’s finest, Christopher Layne, argued that WWI was caused by Great Britain’s refusal to revise the status-quo despite Germany’s rise. From this example, Layne warns that the U.S. and China are heading for war, and only the U.S. can stop it by “undertaking a policy of strategic adjustment in East Asia” to accommodate China’s rising power and influence.

In both cases, the point of the comparison is to suggest that unless something dramatic is done, Asia may stumble into a major war that no one wants just as Europe did a century ago.

Fortunately, as the wise philosopher Rob Farley once cautioned in these pages, “accidental wars rarely happen,” and instead are usually the result of deliberate state policy. And in this regard, WWI is no exception, at least according to Dale C. Copeland.

DEPSECDEF SAYS “UNMANNED SYSTEMS CENTRAL TO FUTURE”

by Fortuna's Corner 

August 29, 2014  

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“Unmanned systems are going to be central to the future”, explains Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work to U.S. troops in Korea

X-47B demonstrator aircraft for the Navy’s UCAS-D program completed its first flight on Nov. 22 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The computer-controlled unmanned aircraft takes off and flies a pre-programmed mission and then returns to base in response to mouse clicks from a mission operator. The operator monitors the flight, but doesn’t actively control it remotely, as for other drones. Manufacturer: Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems Weight: max payload: 4,500lb, 2,041kg Performance: ceiling: >40,000ft, mission radius: >1,500+nm Payload: potential payloads include EO, IR, SAR, ISAR, GMTI, MMTI, ESM Launch: catapult Recovery: conventional wheeled Structure Material: composite Status: in flight test Overall Length: 11.6m (38.2ft) Wingspan: 18.9m (62.1ft) Height: 3.2m (10.4ft) Aircraft Carrier Takeoff Gross Weight: 20,412kg (44,500lb) Speed: High subsonic Power Plant: Pratt & Whitney F100-220U X-47B demonstrator aircraft for the Navy’s UCAS-Dprogram completed its first flight on Nov. 22 at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

The computer-controlled unmanned aircraft takes off and flies a pre-programmed mission and then returns to base in response to mouse clicks from a mission operator. The operator monitors the flight, but doesn’t actively control it remotely, as for other drones. Manufacturer: Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems Weight: max payload: 4,500lb, 2,041kg Performance: ceiling: >40,000ft, mission radius: >1,500+nm Payload: potential payloads include EO, IR, SAR, ISAR, GMTI, MMTI, ESM Launch: catapult Recovery: conventional wheeled Structure Material: composite Status: in flight test Overall Length: 11.6m (38.2ft) Wingspan: 18.9m (62.1ft) Height: 3.2m (10.4ft) Aircraft Carrier Takeoff Gross Weight: 20,412kg (44,500lb) Speed: High subsonic Power Plant: Pratt & Whitney F100-220U

On August 22, 2014 Robert Work, the Deputy Secretary of Defense met with troops serving in the Republic of Korea. There he asked for and received questions regarding a variety of topics. One in particular dealt with unmanned planes from Staff Sergeant Toms who works in the air defense artillery branch of the 6th Battalion 52nd Air Artillery Regiment.

The Air Defense Artillery branch of the US Army specializes in anti-aircraft weapons (such as surface to air missiles). In the US Army, these groups are composed of mainly air defense systems such as the Patriot Missile System, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), and the Avenger Air Defense system which fires the FIM-92 Stinger missile. The Air Defense Artillery branch descended from Anti-Aircraft Artillery

6-52nd Air Defense Artillery (Aka: Iron Horse) Motto “Always Prepared” is headquartered at Suwon Air Base in the Republic of Korea as part of the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade.

SSgt. Toms comments and Deputy Work answers are as follows:

“Q: Sir, with a lot of focus being placed on unmanned aircraft, do you – do you think later on down the line, everything is going to be unmanned, or do you think we’re always going to have some kind of personnel manning all of those aircraft?

MR. WORK: Well, you know, this is a question that gets asked all the time. Yeah, where are we going? What’s going to happen with everything. And to me it is never going to happen. Unmanned systems are going to be central to the future, right, but we’re never going to get to Skynet. I don’t believe it.