Contractors: ” Hillary Broke all the Rules”

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Primer: JWICS =

The Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, is a Top Secret/SCI network run by the United States’ Defense Intelligence Agency and used across the Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice to transmit especially sensitive classified information.

FNC/EXCLUSIVE: Two State Department contractors, with decades of experience protecting the United States’ most sensitive secrets, are speaking out for the first time about Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state and how the rules for government security clearance holders did not seem to apply to Clinton and her team.

“The State Department was her oyster and it was great for the [Clinton] foundation and great for the Clintons to be able to have such a great position,” Dave Whitnah told Fox News.

Whitnah said he worked within the State Department’s Office of Security Technology which is responsible for cameras and alarms and sweeping for bugs. Whitnah said everyone understood the secretary of state is the primary target of foreign intelligence services.

“The number one person would be the secretary of state and their communications,” Whitnah explained. “You can think of the Iran negotiations, nuclear negotiation, negotiations with Russia, talks with Russia. You know, anything to do with foreign policy.”

Whitnah emphasized that tens of millions of dollars were spent on technical security for Clinton that apparently was disregarded as her team traveled around the world on official U.S. government business.

“It was unfathomable that [her BlackBerry] would be used for anything other than just unclassified communication,” Whitnah said. Clinton’s devices were not certified as secure by the State Department. As for her use of a non-secure BlackBerry, Whitnah stressed that email can be intercepted and, “Even if turned off, it’s still a listening device so that’s why you take out the batteries.”

As Clinton was sworn in as secretary in January 2009, government contractor Amel Smith said he was also working at the department and: “State Department rules are clear. I helped write those rules.”

Smith says his 30 years of experience includes serving in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne, before becoming a counter-intelligence and counter-espionage investigator at State tracking down breaches of classified materials. He reviewed some of the FBI witness interviews from the Clinton email investigation with Fox News, and questioned those who claimed not to have the proper training in handling sensitive information.

“I hear things like, well, I forgot, um, I don’t know that I was trained, I don’t know this. You know — every single person that had access to that information when it was sent is in violation,” Smith emphasized.

The FBI witness interviews also show secure facilities for classified information — known as SCIFs — were specially built for Clinton in her in Washington, D.C., and Chappaqua, N.Y., homes. Doors that were supposed to be locked were left open.

“If you’ve got an uncleared person in there, it’s automatically a compromise,” Smith said.

Another FBI interview summary said there were personally owned desktop computers in the secure facilities at Clinton’s homes, yet she told the FBI that she did not have a computer of any kind in these facilities.

“If somebody said they’re there, then they probably were there, and you know, the reason you would deny it was because you probably didn’t have approval,” Smith said.

Having unapproved computers in a SCIF would automatically call for a security investigation.

Asked for his reaction to Clinton’s claim that nothing she sent or received was marked classified, Whitnah called that assertion a “misrepresentation.” Fox News was first to report in June that at least one of the emails contained a classified information portion marking for “c” which is confidential. FBI Director James Comey later said in July when he recommended against criminal charges that a handful of Clinton emails contained classified markings.

But more than 2,100 emails with classified information, and at least 22 at the “top secret” level, passed through Clinton’s unsecured private server. Asked how it happened, Smith said, “Personally, there had to have been somebody moving classified information from C-LAN, C-LAN again is Secret, Confidential only, and JWICS. JWICS is where all top secret information is.”

After new emails were found in the Anthony Weiner sexting case belonging to his estranged wife Clinton aide Huma Abedin, the FBI reopened the Clinton email investigation. On Sunday, Comey said the emails did not change his recommendation against criminal charges because his investigators did not find intent to move classified materials outside secure government channels

“Whether it’s the private email server, whether it’s this private laptop. If there’s classified — one document on there — that’s classified, it’s a violation. Somebody violated [the] law,” Smith said. “Throw all the politics out the window, what we’re talking about is the defense of this nation.”

Asked about Smith and Whitnah, who filed a complaint against the State Department, a department spokesman said they were not direct hires — adding that the head of diplomatic security told the FBI that Clinton was “very responsive to security issues.”

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And her State Department approved that security team in Benghazi

Benghazi guards turned on US diplomats in 2012 attack, sources say

stevenspic1Expand / Contract

Stevens, shown in rear wearing black, with several of the guards sources say turned on him. (Special to Fox News)

FNC: An obscure private firm hired by the State Department over internal objections to protect U.S. diplomats in Benghazi just months before the American ambassador and three others were killed was staffed with hastily recruited locals with terror ties who helped carry out the attack, multiple sources told Fox News.

The explosive charge against Wales-based Blue Mountain Group comes from several sources, including an independent security specialist who has implemented training programs at U.S. Consulates around the world, including in Benghazi, where he trained a local militia that preceded Blue Mountain. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Blue Mountain used local newspaper ads to assemble a team of 20 guards, many of whom had terror ties, after securing a $9.2 million annual contract.

“The guards who were hired were locals who were part of the Ansar al-Sharia and Al Qaeda groups operating in Benghazi,” said the source, whose assignment in Benghazi had ended in November 2011. “Whoever approved contracts at the State Department hired Blue Mountain Group and then allowed Blue Mountain Group to hire local Libyans who were not vetted.”

TIMELINE OF CLINTON’S BENGHAZI STATEMENTS

Many were members of the Libyan government-financed February 17th Martyrs Brigade, an Islamist militia that had previously guarded Americans before being replaced by Blue Mountain.

John “Tig” Tiegen, one of the CIA contractors that responded to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack and co-author of “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi,” confirmed to Fox News that the local Libyans who attacked the consulate that night included guards working for Blue Mountain.

“Many of the local Libyans who attacked the consulate on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, were the actual  guards that the State Department under Hillary Clinton hired to protect the Consulate in Benghazi,” Tiegen told Fox News. “The guards were unvetted and were locals with basically no background at all in providing security. Most of them never had held a job in security in the past.

“Blue Mountain Libya, at the time of being awarded the contract by our State Department, had no employees so they quickly had to find people to work, regardless of their backgrounds,” he said.

One former guard who witnessed the attack, Weeam Mohamed, confirmed in an email sent to the Citizens Commission on Benghazi and obtained by Fox News, that at least four of the guards hired by Blue Mountain took part in the attack after opening doors to allow their confederates in.

“In the U.S. Mission, there were four people [who] belonged to the battalion February 17,” Mohamed wrote to the Commission, an independent body formed with Accuracy in Media to investigate the attack and the administration’s handling of it.

“Always armed. And they are free to move anywhere inside a building mission.

“And therefore, they had a chance to do an attack on the mission’s headquarters. They have all the details about the place. At the same time they have given the United States a painful blow,” Mohamed wrote.

Blue Mountain officials did not return multiple requests for comment. The State Department acknowledged in internal emails obtained by FoxNews.com the local recruits fell short of their duty, but discounted the claim any took an active role in the attack that resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Information Officer Sean Smith and CIA contractors and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

“While the Accountability Review Board report and other reports were critical of our local guards’ performance, we are not aware of any evidence that they participated in the attacks themselves,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby.

Blue Mountain was hired in February 2012, following an uprising that ended Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule and plunged Libya into violent chaos. Congressional testimony in the wake of the attack on a consular office in Benghazi revealed that Stevens and his staff had made hundreds of requests for security upgrades but had been ignored by officials in Washington.

“We kept asking for additional support, including a 50-caliber mounted machine gun, but the State Department would not give it to us, because they said it would upset the locals,” the source told Fox News. “Instead, the State Department hired a company that doesn’t have employees, which then hired terrorists.”

Clare Lopez, a member of Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi, said the Clinton State Department bears blame for the security situation.

“Think about it: Hillary Clinton’s State Department actually hired the very people who, along with their jihadist allies in Benghazi, attacked us and killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and Sean Smith as well as CIA contractors Glen Doherty and Ty Woods,” Lopez said.

According to government records obtained by the Washington-based Judicial Watch, the State Department was in a “rush” to hire Blue Mountain UK, and its affiliate, Blue Mountain Libya, which together formed The Blue Mountain Group to secure the Benghazi contract.

“I understand there was a tremendous rush to get the original contract awarded, and the Service level agreement was most likely overlooked in the rush,” wrote State Department contracting officer Jan Visintainer, in a June 6, 2012, email. Emails obtained from [missing word] after the attack showed Visintainer urged Blue Mountain officials not to talk to the media.

Blue Mountain UK was formed in 2008 by David Nigel Thomas, a former Special Air Service official. Charles Tiefer, a commissioner at the Commission on Wartime Contracting, told Reuters the company was not well known.

“Blue Mountain was virtually unknown to the circles that studied private security contractors working for the United States, before the events in Benghazi,” Tiefer said.

Despite the size of the operation, and having no staff or track record with the State Department, Blue Mountain Group landed the $767,767-per-month contract to protect the Benghazi consular office, beginning on Feb. 17, 2012.

The company solicited applications in local newspapers and on websites, and very little, if any, screening of guards was done, the security specialist told Fox News. The lack of vetting led to several potentially dangerous hires beginning in March of 2012, he said.

“One of those guards hired by Blue Mountain was the younger brother of the leader of Al Qaeda of Benghazi,” he said.

In an email obtained by Judicial Watch, Jairo Saravia of the Regional Security office for the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, told his superiors in Washington that Blue Mountain had held and lost security contracts in Tripoli, with the Corinthian Hotel and Palm City complex.

“The latest information is Blue Mountain is not licensed by the GOL (Government of Libya) to provide security services in Libya,” Saravia wrote. “I would advise not to use their services to provide security for any of our annexes and/or offices due to the sensitivity this issue has with the current GOL.”

Prior to Blue Mountain, security for Americans in Benghazi had been provided by the February 17th Martyrs Brigade under a direct agreement with the State Department. Despite its Islamist orientation, the militia included dozens of locals who had been carefully cultivated and trained by the U.S., according to the source. The majority of the February 17 Militia guards were fired without warning when Blue Mountain was hired, leading some members to turn against the Americans, he said. The State Department kept on at least three February 17 employees for patrol.

Eric Nordstrom, the regional security officer in Libya who has vast, first-hand knowledge of some 600 security requests denied to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, testified on May 8, 2013, before the Congressional Committee On Oversight & Government Reform that he was aware that employees with both February 17 Martyrs Brigade and Blue Mountain had ties to Islamist terrorists.

“I had met with some of my agents and then also with some annex personnel. We discussed that,” Nordstrom told lawmakers.

Nordstrom testified that the “ferocity and intensity” of the 13-hour, four-phase attack, on the 11th anniversary of 9/11, was nothing that they had seen in Libya, or that he had seen in his time in the Diplomatic Security Service, with as many as 60 attackers in the consulate.

“I am stunned that the State Department was relying on [locals] with extremist ties to protect American diplomats,” U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, told Fox News. “That doesn’t make any sense. How does that happen?”

Fox News was able to verify through a former Libyan guard the identities of several February 17 employees hired despite terrorist ties, who he said participated in the attack. While their identities have been provided to federal authorizes, none have been prosecuted.

Foreign Spies on our College Campuses

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International Espionage on Campus

Bishop/CB: The idyllic American university campus conjures the image of a safe and open academic environment where students spend four or more years learning new ideas and preparing for future careers.  Professors challenge eager students to open their minds to old and new perspectives in science, mathematics, business, and of course, the arts and humanities.  Universities nurture an atmosphere where academics and scientists can engage in groundbreaking research, make advances in technology, and publish on novel theories and discoveries.

For many students, college may be the first time they are living on their own, allowing them to explore not only academic freedom but personal freedom. For parents coping with their children leaving home, some comfort is found in the expectation that while students are on campus the university will be actively taking measures to protect them from physical harm and risks that could affect their future.  Parents don’t realize that for some students, college may be the first time students are exposed to the clandestine world of international espionage.

Espionage knows no boundaries.  Foreign intelligence officers and spies lurk wherever there is information of value to be had or people with access to it. Information does not have to be a government secret for a foreign intelligence service to want to steal it.  Nation states play the Great Game to gain an advantage, whether political or economic, over their adversaries.  And there is plenty of information of value on American college campuses to attract the attention of adversary nations.  From advanced research in sciences and technology to professors with access to U.S. government officials, American universities are a target-rich environment for intelligence collection, intellectual property theft, and the illicit transfer of research and technology.   The welcoming nature of American universities—from unlocked entrances to university facilities, minimal investigation into the backgrounds of students enrolling in classes, and open admission to conferences, seminars, and other campus events—creates the perfect opportunity for undercover foreign intelligence officers or their human sources to slip onto campus and search for students who have potential for entering sensitive positions in the U.S. government or landing jobs with American companies engaged in the development and production of emerging and advanced technologies.

While the threat of espionage may not be apparent to parents and students, American universities have little excuse for not knowing about it.  Federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI regularly attempt to advise universities of the potential espionage threats on campus, and the media also has reported extensively on them.  The risks are real, knowable, and preventable, and universities that ignore the threats could face potentially devastating consequences to their reputations, relationships, and financial well being.  For students who do not fully appreciate the risk and get wrapped up on the wrong side of the clandestine world, the impact on their futures can be tremendous and irreversible.  Espionage on campus and the often-related illicit transfer of research and technology from school laboratories also contribute to immediate and long-term decline of U.S. national security interests and the competitive advantage the United States possesses in sciences and technology.  The university campus has been part of the Great Game chessboard for years. This is nothing new and not much has changed.

In 1930s Great Britain, five college students with communist sympathies came under the spell of espionage at the University of Cambridge.  Donald MacLean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, John Cairncross, and Kim Philby were in their undergraduate years when the NKVD, the Soviet precursor to the KGB, recruited them to serve the communist cause.  At the time, none of the students had access to information of value or persons of interest, but the NKVD believed these men, who came from the right social class, would find their way into positions of influence and access. They all did.

MacLean landed key positions in the UK’s foreign office, the equivalent of the U.S. Department of State.  Burgess held positions with the foreign office, the BBC, and MI6.  Blunt spent some time in MI5, served as the Surveyor of the King’s Pictures, and used his standing in academic and social circles to spot other potential Soviet spies. Cairncross made the rounds at MI6 and Bletchley Park, the precursor to the UK’s Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ).  Kim Philby was the prize of the five.  While starting his espionage as a freelance journalist in the Spanish Civil War, which gave him access to pro-Franco forces—the ideological enemies of the Soviet Union—Philby returned to the UK and entered MI6.  There, he steadily rose through the ranks, eventually overseeing MI6’s counterintelligence operations against the Soviet Union. The Cambridge spies, most notably Philby, are still considered to be some of the most damaging spies in UK espionage history. The notoriety of these men is well known in England, and their association with the University of Cambridge as the Cambridge Ring or Cambridge Five will forever be remembered.

American universities have not been immune to the espionage efforts of foreign intelligence services.  In 1984, a student-spy working for the Cuban intelligence service and studying at Johns Hopkins University “spotted” Ana Montes as a potential Cuban recruit.  After being introduced to Cuban intelligence officers, Montes agreed to spy for Cuba while still a graduate student at Johns Hopkins.  She later became an intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), focusing on Cuban issues.  She was arrested in 2001 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Other known espionage or technology/research theft cases affecting the American university community include:

  • In 2002, Qingqiang Yin, a former Cornell University researcher was arrested before boarding a flight to Shanghai from New York.  He was carrying numerous bacteria samples and yeast cultures belonging to the university.  The FBI investigation revealed Yin was seeking a job with a research facility in China and offered to bring the bacteria and yeast cultures to China for commercial enzyme production.  He was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.
  • In 2006, Carlos Alvarez, a psychology professor at Florida International University, admitted during a plea hearing that he had been a Cuban spy for nearly 30 years, gathering and transmitting information about Cuban exile groups to Cuban intelligence agents.  His wife Elsa, also a professor, admitted knowing of her husband’s conduct.  They were sentenced to five and three years’ imprisonment, respectively.  
  • In 2012, the FBI arrested 12 deep-cover Russian SVR intelligence officers who were engaged in espionage against various American targets.  One of the SVR officers was Cynthia Murphy, a.k.a. Lydia Guryeva, who while studying for a master’s degree at Columbia University, was tasked by the SVR to develop relationships with classmates and professors who have or will acquire access to secret information and to report on their backgrounds and characteristics, providing assessments on their vulnerability for recruitment as spies. The SVR also directed Guryeva to collect information on students seeking employment with the CIA.  After pleading guilty to failing to register as an agent of a foreign government, the United States returned Guryeva (and the other deep-cover officers) to Russia in exchange for prisoners held there. 
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  • In 2013, Hua Jun Zhao, a Chinese research assistant at the Medical College of Wisconsin, was arrested and charged with economic espionage after stealing cancer research compounds and shipping them to China, where he allegedly planned to take them to a Chinese university for further development.  He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of illegally downloading research data and was sentenced to time served (four-and-a-half months).
  •    Image result for Hua Jun Zhao
  • Since 2004, the Chinese government has opened numerous Confucius Institutes at universities across the world, including approximately 64 institutes at American universities.  While the stated mission of the institutes is to promote the study of Chinese language and culture abroad, concerns have been raised about the ulterior motives of these institutes.  Allegations have also surfaced that the institutes may be Trojan Horses used by the Chinese government to conduct espionage activities. Regardless of the public evidence available on the alleged intelligence function of these institutes, from this former intelligence officer’s perspective, they are the perfect front for penetrating American universities and targeting their students.  

Again, these are only examples of the espionage threats facing American universities.  These incidents and others have been well documented in the public domain, and American universities dedicated to risk management should know about them, if not for their own protection, then for the benefit of their donors and students and U.S. national security.

Today’s American university receives funding from a variety of sources, including alumni, businesses, philanthropic organizations, and federal and state governments.  Research grants from the public and private sectors are a significant source of income for universities, and donors want the university to reap the benefits of their contributions.  No donor wants to see years of research and funding illegally diverted to a foreign government or competitor.  A university that does not take this risk seriously could begin to see expected research grants and contributions being provided to other schools or facilities, especially when the U.S. government is the funding source.

Universities should also consider the disruption a law enforcement investigation into espionage on campus can have on its day-to-day operations, reputation, and ability to maintain investor (philanthropic) confidence.  The media will undoubtedly provide thorough coverage of an espionage investigation, the accuracy of which is not guaranteed.

Investigators will be removing and combing through files and records.  Computers may be seized, and electronic files of all kinds will be requested.  Interviews of those with knowledge of the incident or perpetrators will be required, and if a public trial takes place, there will be more disruption and publicity.  A university wanting to maintain or salvage its reputation after the uncovering of espionage on its campus will find it advantageous if it can truthfully state it has been cooperating with law enforcement on the investigation rather than have a story surface that the university was one of the obstacles law enforcement had to overcome in order to put an end to the espionage. Having the university’s name negatively associated with a foreign espionage investigation is not the kind of publicity a university will find easy to overcome.
For students, the consequences of becoming entangled in espionage could be severe.   Students make easy targets, and their idealism and naiveté can often get in the way of their judgment.  Once a student is recruited as a spy, his opportunities for reversing course without consequence are limited.  One only needs to look at the choices made by Glenn Duffie Shriver, an American just out of college and living in China, who was slowly manipulated by Chinese intelligence to seek employment with the CIA.  Shriver was arrested and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit unlawful conveyance of national defense information.  Shriver was released from prison in 2013, but he will be forever remembered as a Chinese spy.  Not a great resume builder.

From a national security perspective, espionage on campus also contributes to the perpetual and long-term decline of the United States’ competitive advantage over its adversaries.  The technology and research lost to other countries through espionage and theft robs the American economy of the commercial and economic benefits it would have derived in terms of jobs, profits, and scientific and technological advancement.  The stolen knowledge increases the commercial and economic standing of the countries that committed the theft to the detriment of the United States.  If the stolen technologies and research have military, defense, or security applications, then the losses also contribute to the threats the United States faces from countries and adversaries who seek to challenge or harm its national security interests.

Universities are a soft target for espionage and offer potentially lucrative rewards for our adversaries’ intelligence targeting efforts.  Every loss resulting from espionage or foreign theft at an American university is a gain for the adversaries of the United States. These risks and potential consequences transcend the inerrant concept of the open, academic environment.

Eastern Europe Readiness for War with Russia

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NATO puts 300,000 troops on ‘high alert’ in readiness for a confrontation with Russia as fears grow Putin is preparing to attack the West

  • Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg putting 300,000 troops on ‘high alert’ 
  • Military intelligence are worried about Putin’s new Armata battle tank  
  • UK stalled new tank design as heavy armour is not useful against jihadis

Nato chiefs, thrown into a panic by fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin might attack the West, are scrambling to put together a force of 300,000 troops which they can put on ‘high alert’.

Relations between Russia and the West have plunged in the last year, with Moscow’s insistence on backing its Syrian ally, President Bashar al-Assad, at all costs leading to serious tension with the US, Britain and France.

Most Nato members cut their defence spending dramatically since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 but Russia has been bolstering its military capabilities, holding parades involving more than 100,000 troops each year.

Nato soldiers stand on a pontoon bridge constructed across the Vistula river in Poland during the NATO Anaconda-16 exercise earlier this year

Nato soldiers stand on a pontoon bridge constructed across the Vistula river in Poland during the NATO Anaconda-16 exercise earlier this year

DailyMail: Moscow has been throwing its weight around in recent years – in 2008 Russian troops humiliated the Georgians and in turn the White House by invading South Ossetia and Abkhazia in support of pro-Moscow rebels.

Nato members like Estonia, Poland and Romania, who are feeling increasingly threatened by Moscow, are now being promised a rapid deployment force.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told The Times this week: ‘We have also seen Russia using propaganda in Europe among Nato allies and that is exactly the reason why Nato is responding. We are responding with the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War.

‘We have seen Russia being much more active in many different ways.

‘We have seen a more assertive Russia implementing a substantial military build-up over many years; tripling defence spending since 2000 in real terms; developing new military capabilities; exercising their forces and using military force against neighbours,’ added Mr Stoltenberg. More here.

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Russia’s hybrid war actions:

Montenegro says “nationalists from Russia” planned to kill prime minister

IanAllen: Authorities in the former Yugoslav Republic of Montenegro say that “nationalists from Russia” and Serbia were behind a failed plot to kill the country’s prime minister and spark a pro-Russian coup in the country. As intelNews reported last week, the coup allegations surfaced on October 16, after 20 Serbians and Montenegrins were arrested by authorities for allegedly planning a military coup against the government of Montenegro. The arrests took place on election day, as Montenegrins were voting across the Balkan country of 650,000 people.

On Sunday, at a press conference in Montenegro’s capital and largest city, Podgorica, the country’s Chief Special Prosecutor, Milivoje Katnić, reiterated claims that the failed coup aimed to prevent the reelection of Prime Minister Milo Đukanović, whose push for Montenegro to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has prompted strong objections from Moscow. Katnić told journalists that the plotters had hired a “long-distance sharpshooter” who was “a professional killer”, for the task of killing Đukanović. After killing the Prime Minister, the plotters had planned to storm the parliament and prompt a pro-Russian coup in the former Yugoslav Republic, said the special prosecutor. He added that authorities had confiscated weapons, military uniforms and nearly $140,000 in cash that were found in the possession of the alleged coup plotters.

Asked about the fate of the 20 alleged coup plotters, Katnić said that 14 of them remained in custody in Podgorica, while six others had been extradited to Serbia. The Serbian government of Prime Minister Vučić has accepted Montenegro’s allegations that the coup was hatched in Serbia and has offered to help investigate alleged links between the plotters and the Russian state. However, said Katnić, his team of investigators had no evidence of direct involvement by Russia in the alleged coup plot. But, he said, “two nationalists from Russia”, whom he did not name, were among the leaders of the plot. In a press statement, Katnić’s office said that other coup plotters in addition to the 20 men arrested, remained at large, having escaped from Serbia. They could now be in Russia, he said. Moscow has not responded to the claims by the Montenegrin authorities.

*** Denise has interview Nolan Peterson on Ukraine

Back to Ukraine, ready for the Russian Invasion

Nolan Peterson: Kiev, Ukraine—The young man never told anyone he was going to war.

The 20-year-old student at Kiev’s Taras Shevchenko National University slipped away in June 2014 to join a civilian paramilitary group fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The young man, whose name was Sviatoslav Horbenko, was a star pupil at the university’s Institute of Philology, where he studied Japanese. When he transferred from a university in Kharkiv, a city in eastern Ukraine, during his third year, he had to retake 17 exams.

He aced them all.

“There was no bellicose air about him,” said Serhiy Yanchuk, an associate professor at Taras Shevchenko University and coordinator of the university’s Students Guard, a volunteer militia comprising students and faculty.

“He never acted or behaved aggressively for his personal cause,” Yanchuk said. “He was friendly, warm hearted, and an easy-going person. One would surely want to be a friend of such a guy.”

At his father’s behest, the younger Horbenko moved to Kiev and settled into life and his studies at Taras Shevchenko National University.

And then, a few months after the war began in the summer of 2014, Sviatoslav Horbenko disappeared. Without telling his friends, family, or teachers, he joined Right Sector, a civilian volunteer battalion, to fight at the battle for the Donetsk airport.

Olexander Horbenko ultimately was able to track Sviatoslav down at boot camp. The father tried to dissuade his son from going to war. But Sviatoslav was determined.

“That was my last meeting with him alive, our unforgettable conversation,” Olexander Horbenko later said. “Sviatoslav considered defending his fatherland as his duty, and he developed the strong bonds of military comradeship.” Read the full story here.

 

Nadhmi Auchi is Back, Preventing War Crimes on Assad?

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-الأنبار-629x330.jpg Militant fighters of the Islamic State. File photo
As we witness tragedy beyond definition in Syria, it is becoming clear why Barack Obama has been largely absent on a policy in Syria. He has an old Chicago friend in the mix.

WikiLeaks: 29 Feb 1960 Foreign Service Dispatch from the US Embassy in Baghdad to the US Department of State, six scanned pages, declassified.

The document reports the terms of imprisonment and other sentences, imposed as a result of the 7 Oct 1959 Baath party assassination plot against the then Iraqi Prime Minister, Abdul al-Karim Qassim.

Notable figures sentenced include Saddam Hussien (“Saddam Husayn al-Tikriti”, Trial Group I) and the British-based Iraqi billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, who was sentenced to three years “rigorous imprisonment” (“Nadhmi Shakir Awji”, Trial Group IV). More here. 

Rebel shelling kills over 80 civilians in Syria’s Aleppo

 

 

 

ARANews: Raqqa – A top security official in the ranks of the Islamic State (ISIS) radical group was reported dead on Sunday, after a US-led coalition hit his car with an airstrike in the western countryside of Raqqa Governorate, in northeastern Syria.

“The airstrike killed at least five ISIS members, including al-Othman who used to lead the ISIS security department in Tabqa,” local media activist Abdulkarim al-Yousef told ARA News.

The raid comes as part of the coalition’s policy to target and hunt ISIS jihadi leaders.

“The drone attack was carried out based on information from local sources trusted by the Syrian Democratic Forces,” an SDF spokesman told ARA News.

The strike coincided with the announcement of the battle for Raqqa by the Kurdish-Arab alliance of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Raqqa is deemed a de-facto capital for the ISIS’ self-declared Caliphate.

The US-backed SDF has established a new operations room to coordinate the battle for Raqqa against the Islamic State (ISIS). “On November 5th, the SDF established a new operations room known as the Euphrates Wrath to intensify coordination between the various military factions participating in the battle for Raqqa.”

Reporting by: Jamil Mukarram | Source: ARA News

Syrian propagandists have found the ideal launderers for their message: Western journalists

Tablet: Bashar al-Assad’s regime has pulled off a grotesque PR coup by corralling a number of prominent American journalists from outlets like The New York Times, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker to participate in a conference designed to legitimize the rule of Syria’s genocidal head of state. The conference held Sunday and Monday in Damascus, was organized by the British Syrian Society, a “foundation” chaired by Assad’s father-in-law, the London-based physician Fawaz Ahkras. The larger purpose of the conference appears to be raising money for the regime and its war effort, in part by relieving sanctions against major regime figures.

Many of the participants (here is a partial list of attendees) are British journalists, like Christina Lamb of The Sunday Times, and other UK figures drawn from Akhras’ London contacts. Indeed, the conference is meant to have something of a British ambiance, which is why it’s being conducted according to “Chatham House rules”—a phrase that misleadingly (and hilariously) suggests that the British foreign office is convening the panels. It seems unlikely that the Syrian intelligence officers speaking at the event, like Col. Samer, know Chatham House Rules from Hama Rules, nor do they care. The point is to legitimize the regime’s message with a vague atmosphere of Western ideas and methods—which is why having Western journalists in the audience, and even on panels, is important to the regime. Attending a conference that features at least four Syrian regime officials who are currently sanctioned for their role in Assad’s war crimes, are, among others, the New York Times’ Beirut correspondent Anne Barnard, NPR’s Alison Meuse, and Dexter Filkins of The New Yorker

The stated purpose of the Damascus conference is to “facilitate a better understanding of a very complicated crisis.” And presumably journalists in attendance have rationalized their participation to their editors along those exact lines: Since we’re covering the other side of a war, they’re no doubt explaining, it’s a good thing to hear the Assad regime’s side of the story. And since we can’t get into Damascus safely otherwise, it’s fine if we go under the protection of the regime. How else could we get in there?

There’s a simple test for whether such excuses are valid: Will the Assad government provide access to non-regime figures, like the citizens that Assad and his allies have starved in the town of Madaya? Will the regime provide them access to the countless opposition figures, including peaceful activists, the regime has put in prison and tortured? The answers are “of course not” and “under no circumstances.”

So, why go? For the camaraderie? For the sheer joy of doing journalism with other journalists in comfortable surroundings, while 200,000 Syrians are trapped, starving and under military assault, in the ruined city of Aleppo? For the great Middle Eastern food?

To get a sense of what attending a conference put on by a genocidal regime is like, here are some pictures from the twitter feed of Suzan Haidamous of The Washington Post, one of the journalists attending the Damascus conference. She deleted them after posting the pictures Sunday, the first day of the conference, perhaps after one of the subjects expressed concern that pictures of journalists being fed lavishly in the middle of Damascus—perhaps courtesy of the Syrian regime—as Assad and his allies starved Syrian civilians close by might damage the reputations of those depicted in the photos.

In the first picture, from left to right, are Dexter Filkins of The New Yorker; Haidamous; Nour Samaha, who has written for Foreign Policy and The Atlantic, Rania Abouzeid, who has contributed to TIME and The New Yorker; and Nabih Bulos, a special correspondent with the Los Angeles Times. Hashtags for this picture included #Goodtimes and #journalism.

*** Suzan Haidamous, who was enthusiastically promoting her participation in the Assad whitewash “conference” in Damascus, deleted these pics 1/

So, here they are, for the record: with Dexter Filkins, Haidamous, Nour Samaha, Rania Abouzeid, and Nabih Bulos. 2/

In the second picture, from left to right, are Anne Barnard, The New York Times Beirut bureau chief, Heba Saleh of the Financial Times; Hwaida Saad of The New York Times; and Haidamous. Hashtags here included #news and #reporting

That one was posted with the hashtags and . A couple more appropriate ones were left out: 3/

And here’s the second deleted pic, with Haidamous, Hwaida Saad, Heba Saleh, and Anne Barnard. For the record. 4/4 pic.twitter.com/82fxmJ0lXu

That one was posted with the hashtags and . A couple more appropriate ones were left out: 3/

Slaughter in the playground: Six young children are killed on a break between lessons as ‘President Assad’s troops’ bomb a Syrian nursery school
A boy winces as he receives treatment at a hospital in Ghouta, an opposition-controlled suburb of the capital, Damascus, on Sunday

A boy winces as he receives treatment at a hospital in Ghouta, an opposition-controlled suburb of the capital, Damascus, on Sunday
The White Helmets volunteer group posted this photo on social media purportedly showing a victim of the nursery attack on Sunday 

The White Helmets volunteer group posted this photo on social media purportedly showing a victim of the nursery attack on Sunday

More here from DailyMailUK.

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RCP: A British citizen of Iraqi descent, Mr. Auchi, 70, is a billionaire, the 279th richest man in the world, according to a Forbes magazine survey last year. A great deal of Mr. Auchi’s money was made doing business with the regime of Saddam Hussein, much of it under the table. In 1987, Mr. Auchi helped French and Italian firms win a huge oil pipeline contract in Iraq, chiefly by paying off Iraqi officials, according to testimony given by an Italian banker to prosecutors in Milan. In 2003, he was convicted for his role in what was then the largest scandal in French history, involving payoffs from executives of the oil company now known as Total to political figures in Spain, Germany and Africa.

“‘He has been able to collect British politicians the way other people collect stamps,’ wrote Nick Cohen in a 2003 profile of Mr. Auchi in the left wing British newspaper the Observer.

“Mr. Auchi was a leading supplier of arms to Saddam’s regime. A former Belgian ambassador to Luxembourgcharged that a bank in Luxembourg owned principally by Mr. Auchi laundered funds — including Oil-For-Food money — for Saddam and other Islamic dictators.

“‘The name Nadhmi Auchi was just another name for Saddam’s intelligence service, or so we thought,’ said Nibras Kazimi, a former Iraqi dissident who is now a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute in WashingtonD.C.

“Mr. Auchi is a business partner of Syrian-born businessman Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko, who has supported Mr. Obama financially since his first run for the Illinois state senate in 1996.

“Mr. Rezko currently is in jail awaiting trial on charges he extorted money from firms seeking to do business with the state of Illinois…. Rezko’s bail was revoked Jan. 28 when the trial judge learned that he, friends and relatives had been wired $3.5 million [in May 2005] from firms in Lebanon controlled by Mr. Auchi. The judge feared Mr. Rezko was about to flee the country….

“Mr. Rezko has described Mr. Auchi as a ‘close friend.’ Mr. Auchi says they have only a business relationship. They’ve been partners in a chain of pizza restaurants in Wisconsin and in a major real estate development inRiverside Park in Chicago.

“The connection between Mr. Auchi and Sen. Obama is tenuous. But given Mr. Auchi’s shady past, his history of bribing politicians, it’s not unreasonable to ask if [he], through Mr. Rezko, was trying to buy influence with a rising political star [Obama].”

 

 

U.S. Military ‘Inside’ and Prepared for Cyber Wars

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U.S. Govt. Hackers Ready to Hit Back If Russia Tries to Disrupt Election

by Ken Dilanian, William M. Arkin and Cynthia McFadden

NBC: U.S. military hackers have penetrated Russia’s electric grid, telecommunications networks and the Kremlin’s command systems, making them vulnerable to attack by secret American cyber weapons should the U.S. deem it necessary, according to a senior intelligence official and top-secret documents reviewed by NBC News.

American officials have long said publicly that Russia, China and other nations have probed and left hidden malware on parts of U.S critical infrastructure, “preparing the battlefield,” in military parlance, for cyber attacks that could turn out the lights or turn off the internet across major cities.

It’s been widely assumed that the U.S. has done the same thing to its adversaries. The documents reviewed by NBC News — along with remarks by a senior U.S. intelligence official — confirm that, in the case of Russia.

U.S. officials continue to express concern that Russia will use its cyber capabilities to try to disrupt next week’s presidential election. U.S. intelligence officials do not expect Russia to attack critical infrastructure — which many believe would be an act of war — but they do anticipate so-called cyber mischief, including the possible release of fake documents and the proliferation of bogus social media accounts designed to spread misinformation.

On Friday the hacker known as “Guccifer 2.0” — which U.S. officials say is a front for Russian intelligence — tweeted a threat to monitor the U.S. elections “from inside the system.”

As NBC News reported Thursday, the U.S. government is marshaling resources to combat the threat in a way that is without precedent for a presidential election.

The cyber weapons would only be deployed in the unlikely event the U.S. was attacked in a significant way, officials say.

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U.S. military officials often say in general terms that the U.S. possesses the world’s most advanced cyber capabilities, but they will not discuss details of highly classified cyber weapons.

James Lewis, a cyber expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says that U.S. hacks into the computer infrastructure of adversary nations such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — something he says he presumes has gone on for years — is akin to the kind of military scouting that is as old as human conflict.

“This is just the cyber version of that,” he said.

In 2014, National Security Agency chief Adm. Mike Rogers told Congress that U.S. adversaries are performing electronic “reconnaissance” on a regular basis so that they can be in a position to disrupt the industrial control systems that run everything from chemical facilities to water treatment plants.

“All of that leads me to believe it is only a matter of when, not if, we are going to see something dramatic,” he said at the time.

Rogers didn’t discuss the U.S.’s own penetration of adversary networks. But the hacking undertaken by the NSA, which regularly penetrates foreign networks to gather intelligence, is very similar to the hacking needed to plant precursors for cyber weapons, said Gary Brown, a retired colonel and former legal adviser to U.S. Cyber Command, the military’s digital war fighting arm.

“You’d gain access to a network, you’d establish your presence on the network and then you’re poised to do what you would like to do with the network,” he told NBC News. “Most of the time you might use that to collect information, but that same access could be used for more aggressive activities too.”

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Brown and others have noted that the Obama administration has been extremely reluctant to take action in cyberspace, even in the face of what it says is a series of Russian hacks and leaks designed to manipulate the U.S. presidential election.

Administration officials did, however, deliver a back channel warning to Russian against any attempt to influence next week’s vote, officials told NBC News.

The senior U.S. intelligence official said that, if Russia initiated a significant cyber attack against critical infrastructure, the U.S. could take action to shut down some Russian systems — a sort of active defense.

Retired Adm. James Stavridis, who served as NATO commander of Europe, told NBC News’ Cynthia McFadden that the U.S. is well equipped to respond to any cyber attack.

“I think there’s three things we should do if we see a significant cyber-attack,” he said. “The first obviously is defending against it. The second is reveal: We should be publicizing what has happened so that any of this kind of cyber trickery can be unmasked. And thirdly, we should respond. Our response should be proportional.”

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The U.S. use of cyber attacks in the military context — or for covert action — is not without precedent.

During the 2003 Iraq invasion, U.S spies penetrated Iraqi networks and sent tailored messages to Iraqi generals, urging them to surrender, and temporarily cut electronic power in Baghdad.

In 2009 and 2010, the U.S., working with Israel, is believed to have helped deploy what became known as Stuxnet, a cyber weapon designed to destroy Iranian nuclear centrifuges.

Today, U.S. Cyber Command is engaged in cyber operations against the Islamic State, including using social media to expose the location of militants and sending spoof orders to sow confusion, current and former officials tell NBC News.

One problem, officials say, is that the doctrine around cyber conflict — what is espionage, what is theft, what is war — is not well developed.

“Cyber war is undefined,” Brown said. “There are norms of behavior that we try to encourage, but people violate those.”

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UK Announces New Policy on Cyber Attacks: ‘We Will Strike Back in Kind’

The interactions of the Active Cyber Defence program

In recognition of the risk cyber attacks pose, the government’s 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review classified cyber as a Tier One threat to the UK – that’s the same level as terrorism, or international military conflict. …

AtlanticCouncil: [W]e must keep up with the scale and pace of the threat we face. So today I am launching the government’s National Cyber Security Strategy for the next 5 years. The new strategy is built on three core pillars: defend, deter and develop, underpinned by £1.9 billion of transformational investment.

First of all Defend. We will strengthen the defences of government, our critical national infrastructure sectors like energy and transport, and our wider economy. We will work in partnership with industry to apply technologies that reduce the impact of cyber-attacks, while driving up security standards across both public and private sectors. We will ensure that our most sensitive information and networks, on which our government and security depend, are protected.

In practice, that means government taking a more active cyber defence approach – supporting industry’s use of automated defence techniques to block, disrupt and neutralise malicious activity before it reaches the user. The public have much to gain from active cyber defence and, with the proper safeguards in place to protect privacy, these measures have the potential to be transformational in ensuring that UK internet users are secure by default.

We are already deploying active cyber defence in government and we know it works: we’ve already successfully reduced the ability of attackers to spoof government e-mails as a key example. Until 6 weeks ago we were seeing faking of some @gov.uk addresses, such as ‘[email protected] ’. Criminals have been using these fake addresses to defraud people, by impersonating government departments. 50,000 spoof emails using the [email protected] address were being sent a everyday – now, thanks to our interventions, there are none.

The second pillar is deterrence. We will deter those who seek to steal from us, threaten us or otherwise harm our interests in cyberspace. We’re strengthening our law enforcement capabilities to raise the cost and reduce the reward of cyber criminality – ensuring we can track, apprehend and prosecute those who commit cyber crimes. And we will continue to invest in our offensive cyber capabilities, because the ability to detect, trace and retaliate in kind is likely to be the best deterrent. A small number of hostile foreign actors have developed and deployed offensive cyber capabilities, including destructive ones. These capabilities threaten the security of the UK’s critical national infrastructure and our industrial control systems.

If we do not have the ability to respond in cyberspace to an attack which takes down our power networks leaving us in darkness, or hits our air traffic control system, grounding our planes, we would be left with the impossible choice of turning the other cheek and ignoring the devastating consequences, or resorting to a military response. That is a choice that we do not want to face – and a choice we do not want to leave as a legacy to our successors. That is why we need to develop a fully functioning and operational cyber counter-attack capability. There is no doubt in my mind that the precursor to any future state-on-state conflict would be a campaign of escalating cyber-attacks, to break down our defences and test our resolve before the first shot is fired. Kinetic attacks carry huge risk of retaliation and may breach international law.

But in cyber space those who want to harm us appear to think they can act both scalably and deniably. It is our duty to demonstrate that they cannot act with impunity. So we will not only defend ourselves in cyberspace; we will strike back in kind when we are attacked.

And thirdly development. We will develop the capabilities we need in our economy and society to keep pace with the threat in the future. To make sure we’ve got a pipeline talented of people with the cyber skills we need, we will increase investment in the next generation of students, experts and companies.

I can announce we’re creating our latest cyber security research institute – a virtual network of UK universities dedicated to technological research and supported by government funding. The new virtual institute will focus on hardware and will look to improve the security of smart phone, tablets and laptops through innovative use of novel technology. We’re building cyber security into our education systems and are committed to providing opportunities for young people to pursue a career in this dynamic and exciting sector. And we’re also making sure that every young person learns the cyber life-skills they need to use the internet safely, confidently and successfully.

These three pillars that I’ve outlined – deter, defend and develop – are all supported by our new National Cyber Security Centre, based in Victoria in central London.

For the first time the government will have a dedicated, outward-facing authority on cyber – making it much simpler for business to get advice on cyber security and to interact with government on cyber security issues. Allowing us to deploy the high level skills that government has, principally in GCHQ, to support the development of commercial applications to enhance cyber security.

The Centre subsumes CERT UK and will provide the next generation of cyber security incident management. This means that when businesses or government bodies, or academic organisations report a significant incident, the Centre will bring together the full range of technical skills from across government and beyond to respond immediately. They will link up with law enforcement, help mitigate the impact of the incident, seek to repair the damage and assist in the tracing and prosecution of those responsible.

Across all its strands, the National Cyber Security Strategy we’re publishing today represents a major step forward in the fight against cyber attack.

Excerpts from “Speech Launching the National Cyber Security Strategy,” by Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, Nov. 1, 2016.