Demanded bin Ladin’s Death Certificate, Denied

 

As written about in detail here, a hacking group calling itself the Yemen Cyber Army performed a cyber intrusion into the Saudi ministry of Foreign Affairs. A particular set of communications points to the request for Usama bin Ladin’s death certificate, and the United States denied the request. Other Freedom of Information requests were also made and the response was, there is no record.

Osama bin Laden’s son asked the U.S. government for his father’s death certificate. The U.S. said no.

by: Adam Taylor, Washington Post

According to a recently leaked document, the son of al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, Abdullah bin Laden, sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia to ask for his father’s death certificate.

In response, the embassy wrote to Abdullah to inform him that there was no death certificate issued for the older bin Laden.

The letter went on to suggest other ways that the al-Qaeda leader’s death could be officially confirmed.

The remarkable exchange has come to light thanks to the latest release from WikiLeaks, the controversial secret sharing organization helmed by Julian Assange. On Friday, the organization released what it said was the first part of more than a half-million cables and other documents from the Saudi Foreign Ministry, which it had dubbed “The Saudi Cables.”

The U.S. Embassy’s response to Abdallah was included within the release. It is dated Sept. 9, 2011, approximately four months after bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces during a raid on his hideout in Pakistan. U.S. officials have said that bin Laden was later buried at sea. Requests to publish photographs of bin Laden’s body or his burial have been denied and any photographs taken are suspected to have been destroyed.

In the letter to Abdullah bin Laden, Glen Keiser, a consul general at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, explains that the lack of a death certificate for bin Laden is “consistent with regular practice for individuals killed in the course of military operations.”

Keiser goes on to suggest that the criminal case against Osama bin Laden had effectively been dropped due to his death since June 2011, and describes a process for requesting the order of “nolle prosequi” (which literally means “unwilling to pursue”) from the court, which could act as proof of death.

It’s unclear why Abdullah bin Laden had requested the death certificate.

In 2012, the Department of Defense responded to an Associated Press Freedom of Information Act request and said that it was unable to find a death certificate for bin Laden.

Newly declassified documents from the compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 have revealed the late al-Qaeda leader’s remarkable English-language library, including books by Noam Chomsky, Bob Woodward and even 9/11 conspiracy theorist David Ray Griffin.

Yet the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which released the files on Wednesday, has not released all the material found in the compound. In fact, there’s a rather notorious stash that the U.S. government apparently doesn’t want you to see: a cache of pornography.

Newly declassified documents from the compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 have revealed the late al-Qaeda leader’s remarkable English-language library, including books by Noam Chomsky, Bob Woodward and even 9/11 conspiracy theorist David Ray Griffin.

Yet the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which released the files on Wednesday, has not released all the material found in the compound. In fact, there’s a rather notorious stash that the U.S. government apparently doesn’t want you to see: a cache of pornography. More on the bin Ladin book shelf here.

Yemen Cyber Army, Saudi and Wikileaks

Here it comes again, a major hack that took place earlier this month and the documents are in a pipeline to be published. Some are out there now.

From www.securityaffairs.co who I just interviewed for radio last week:

“We have gained access to the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) network and have full control over more than 3000 computers and servers, and thousands of users. We also have access to the emails, personal and secret information of hundreds of thousands of their diplomats in different missions around the world.” states the group.

The following image was left on the PC of the employees at the Saudi foreign ministry on Thursday morning

Yemen Cyber Army vs Saudi Gov

More details here on the Yemen Cyber Army and the Saudi hack. The Yemen Cyber Army left behind these messages for file access as well:

OPERATION Name : “Syed Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi”
OPERATION Key  : b919117da9954bd82e65677cb240bbb3e4ddbd9ac93e10f0a399257ad54d851a

Saudi Arabia Ministry of Foreign Affairs Hacked By Yemen Cyber Army
All MOFA.GOV.SA Subdomains And Servers Hacked and HDD Encrypted
Allah is the enemy of those who oppress people

This is to convey a message to Saudi Dictators, if they’ve got a listening ear!

It’s us again, Yemen Cyber Army!

We are an Islamic Group who fights against you oppressors.

What you and your puppets commit in Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Iraq and Lebanon, remind us of crimes your forefather Yazid-ibn-Muawiya committed in Karbala. And indeed you are good successors to him. You are ISIS and ISIS is you.

Never assume our calmness is due to weakness. We are oppressed! God will judge between you and us. As we never seek help from other than him.
You are pagan oppressors as you always fawn for US and Israel, that’s what you deserve.
So congratulations to those who achieve martyrdom in fight against pagan oppressors.

“And never think of those who have been killed in the cause of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision ”

Our cyber operation is just started and by the grace of God we are expecting the Saudi regime’s collapse by the “Labbaik Ya-Hossain” slogan.
This second operation is blessed by the name of martyred “Syed Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi” and is going to be a beginning to Saudi’s overthrow, Inshallah.

We have gained access to the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) network and have full control over more than 3000 computers and servers, and thousands of users. We also have access to the emails, personal and secret information of hundreds of thousands of their diplomats in different missions around the world.

We publish only few portions of vital information we have, just to let them know that “truly the flimsiest of houses is the spider´s house”

Some portions of visa secret information, thousands of documents from the MOFA’s automation system and secret emails will be published gradually so as to keep Saudi puppets always in fear of their identity disclosure.

This way they might slightly come to know how it feels when our innocent women and children rush into havens crying and looking for their beloved once in dark.

And that’s not all! All your computers will be automatically wiped on Wednesday – 2015 20 May and at 12:00 to become a lesson for oppressors.

We have the same access to the Interior Ministry (MOI) and Defense Ministry (MOD) of which the details will be published in near future. Wish such shocking news make Saudi dictators to come to their senses and recapture those young wild dogs’ leash to avoid Muslims exploiting hate against Saudi family.
If you did not stop attacks on Muslims in Yemen, do not blame anyone but yourself and expect greater harms.
Files PASSWORD : [email protected]

Your Network Hacked By Yemen Cyber Army
We Are Cutting Sword of Justice
All Your Data is Encrypted and You Can’t Access Them without Key
Find Out the Decryption Key This Way :
Number of Yemeni Children Killed in Saudi Air Attacks   +
Number of Yemeni Homes Destroyed By Saudi-USA Bombs   –
Number of Saudis Killed By Yemenis   –
Number of Israeli Soldiers Killed by Saudi and Arab Union in 1984!!!!

#OPSAUDI
#YEMEN_UNDER_ATTACK
#OPKSA

We Are Anonymous
We Are Everywhere
We Are Legion
We do Not Forgive
We do Not Forget
Stop Attacking To Our Country!

****

Now enter the documents and Wikileaks.

WikiLeaks says it’s leaking over 500,000 Saudi documents

ISTANBUL (AP) — WikiLeaks is in the process of publishing more than 500,000 Saudi diplomatic documents to the Internet, the transparency website said Friday, a move that echoes its famous release of U.S. State Department cables in 2010.

WikiLeaks said in a statement that it has already posted roughly 60,000 files. Most of them appear to be in Arabic.

There was no immediate way to verify the authenticity of the documents, although WikiLeaks has a long track record of hosting large-scale leaks of government material. Many of the documents carried green letterhead marked “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” or “Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” Some were marked “urgent” or “classified.” At least one appeared to be from the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

If genuine, the documents would offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the notoriously opaque kingdom. They might also shed light on Riyadh’s longstanding regional rivalry with Iran, its support for Syrian rebels and Egypt’s military-backed government, and its opposition to an emerging international agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program.

One of the documents, dated to 2012, appears to highlight Saudi Arabia’s well-known skepticism about the Iranian nuclear talks. A message from the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Tehran to the Foreign Ministry in Riyadh describes “flirting American messages” being carried to Iran via an unnamed Turkish mediator.

Another 2012 missive, this time sent from the Saudi Embassy in Abu Dhabi, said the United Arab Emirates was putting “heavy pressure” on the Egyptian government not to try former president Hosni Mubarak, who had been overthrown in a popular uprising the year before.

Some of the concerns appear specific to Saudi Arabia.

In an Aug. 14, 2008 message marked “classified and very urgent,” the Foreign Ministry wrote to the Saudi Embassy in Washington to warn that dozens of students from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries had visited the Israeli Embassy in the U.S. capital as part of an international leadership program.

“They listened to diplomats’ briefings from the embassy employees, they asked questions and then they took pictures,” the message said, asking the embassy for a speedy update on the situation.

Another eye-catching item was a document addressed to the interior and justice ministers notifying them that a son of Osama bin Laden had obtained a certificate from the American Embassy in Riyadh “showing (the) death of his father.”

Many more of the dozens of documents examined by The Associated Press appeared to be the product of mundane administrative work, such as emails about setting up a website or operating an office fax machine.

The AP was able to partially verify a handful of documents’ authenticity by calling the telephone numbers included in many of them. WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson told AP he was confident that the material was genuine.

It is not clear how WikiLeaks got the documents, although in its statement the website referred to a recent electronic attack on the Saudi Foreign Ministry by a group calling itself the Yemen Cyber Army. Hrafnsson declined to elaborate on the statement or say whether the hackers subsequently passed documents on to WikiLeaks.

“As a matter of policy we’re not going to discuss the source of the material,” he said.

The Saudi Embassy in Washington did not immediately return repeated messages seeking comment.

In its statement, WikiLeaks said the release coincided with the three-year anniversary of its founder, Julian Assange, seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Assange took refuge in the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning about alleged sex crimes. Assange has denied any wrongdoing.  To access: WikiLeaks’ Saudi Cables site: https://wikileaks.org/saudi-cables/

 

 

We’re Sorry Israel, We Are Embarrassed by POTUS

The president during his entire term has been petulant and his actions and decisions regarding the Middle East are epically wrong and dangerous.

After a particular report released this week by the State Department by the Bureau of Terrorism, in simple words, one could easily conclude that under Barack Obama, the grace delivered to Iran during years of talks would have a hidden objective that Iran fulfills its pledge to destroy Israel, relieving Obama’s ultimate mission. There is no question that all top leaders in the foreign policy side of the Obama administration are consumed with disdain for Israel.

The report gives special recognition to Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority giving praise for positive actions to keep peace in the region. Another summary by Jonathan Tobin in Commentary has an out-take of the report that reads:

The report also restates the widely reported fact that Iran “continued to be in noncompliance with its international obligations regarding its nuclear program.” But unless the Obama administration grows a spine and changes its policies within weeks the United States will sign a nuclear deal with Tehran that will soon result in a vast windfall of cash falling into Iran’s hands. Yet nowhere in the nuclear framework agreement is there any promise, however lacking in credibility, that Iran will foreswear the same activities that the State Department just reported and which, by U.S. law, ought to mandate continued sanctions rather than an end to restrictions on doing business with the Islamist regime.

Iran is also a primary obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians because of its funding and arms supplies funneled to terror groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Iran had previously been a primary supporter of Hamas but broke with the rulers of the independent Palestinian state in all but name in Gaza over differences on Syria. But now that Iran and Assad appear to be in no danger and short of money and arms after last summer’s war, Hamas appears to have come back into Tehran’s good graces. But even during their split, Iran was still doing its best to keep other radicals so as to ensure that Palestinian leaders are too afraid to make peace with Israel even if they wanted to do so.

But in spite of this activity reported by its own State Department, there is little doubt that the administration is bound and determined to go ahead and sign a nuclear deal with Iran.

So, when it comes to the broken relationship between the White House and Israel, here is a first hand account of key disgusting moments at the hands of the Obama regime.

An Inside Look At How Obama Killed The U.S.-Israel Relationship

Oren book reveals Immense hostility, anger at Israel

In his new memoir, former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren documents the rapid dissolution of the historically close U.S.-Israel alliance under President Barack Obama. Oren recounts being threatened and intimidated at multiple junctures by Obama and his senior officials, marking many firsts in a relationship that has long been the cornerstone of American foreign policy.

The memoir, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide, has already rushed to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list. It provides a window into the daily stresses and strains Obama and his allies heaped upon the Jewish state—from placing unprecedented demands on Israel regarding the peace process to fabricating crises in the U.S.-Israel alliance.

“Prophecy was not required to foresee that an Obama presidency might strain the U.S.-Israel alliance,” Oren writes in the early pages of his book.

Obama stacked his administration with senior officials hostile to Israel and pursued a policy of “daylight” with Jewish state, Oren recounts.

“The first thing Obama will do in office is pick a fight with Israel,” Oren recalls a confidant as telling him in the early days of the administration.

Below are a series of passages that reveal in detail how the U.S.-Israel alliance hit historic lows under the Obama administration.

1. ‘I know how to deal with people who oppose me’

The tension between Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel began during their first meeting at the White House, Oren recalls. While the meeting appeared to go “smoothly,” behind the scenes Obama outwardly threatened Netanyahu.

“Face-to-face, I later heard, Obama had demanded that Netanyahu cease all building not only in the territories but also in the disputed areas of Jerusalem,” Oren writes. “‘Not a single brick,’” the president purportedly said. ‘I know how to deal with people who oppose me.’”

Obama and Netanyahu / AP

2. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Commanders Never Trusted Obama

Oren recounts listening to Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo while stationed in the IDF’s headquarters. “Their reactions typified that of a great many Israelis.”

These commanders “scoffed at what they regarded as Obama’s inexperience with the Middle East, where magnanimity is often seen as weakness. They cringed at his tendency to equate America’s moral foibles with the honor killings, human trafficking, and the suppression of women, foreign workers, and indigenous minorities rampant in many Muslim countries,” Oren writes.

Their opinions only grew dimmer when Obama “linked that legitimacy [of Israel] to the Jews’ ‘tragic history’ in the Holocaust. That linkage seemed to me to be the most damaging part of his speech.”

3. The Anti-Israel State Department

Oren’s first meeting with then-Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg was fraught and filled with demands that Israel consent to Obama administration demands for a total building freeze in Jerusalem. Such intimidation and threats would be a cornerstone of Oren’s meetings with senior officials at Foggy Bottom.

“Discord indeed mired my initial meeting with Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg,” Oren writes.

“Under the administration’s policy, a Jew could only build his home in certain Jerusalem neighborhoods but an Arab could build anywhere—even illegally—without limit. ‘In America,’ I said, ‘that’s called discrimination.’”

Later in his tenure, Steinberg would again upbraid Oren. State Department staffers apparently “listened in on” the angry meeting and “cheered,” according to Oren.

4. Congressional Democrats Scold Oren

A handful of congressional Democrats berated Oren during his first trip to Capitol Hill as ambassador.

“In our first conversation, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida caught me off guard with a letter from a constituent alleging ‘Israeli economic apartheid’ in the territories,” Oren recalls.

Later, “Senator Dianne Feinstein offered me a glass of select California wine and said, ‘I am a peacemaker but you are a fighter.’”

Later in the book, Oren recalls taking a call from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), who “railed at me so furiously [about Israeli criticism of Obama] that I literally had to hold the phone form my ear.”

IDF tanks / AP

5. Obama Tells Off Prominent American Jewish Leaders in Private Meeting

Obama’s first meeting with a delegation of top American Jewish leaders was tense, according to Oren.

While such gatherings “had become standard” for previous White Houses, “for Obama … the briefings were less a means of garnering support than of muting opposition. Indeed, what many American Jewish leaders saw as the placing of undue pressure on Israel, the president regarded as displays of restraint.”

Obama invited the anti-Israel fringe group J Street to participate in these private meetings, a move that angered more mainstream Jewish leaders.

6. Rahm Emanuel’s Angry Outbursts

Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, notorious for his profanity-laden outbursts, woke Oren one morning with an angry call.

“I don’t like this f***ing shit,” Oren quotes Emanuel as saying about Israel’s refusal to stop building Jewish homes in disputed territories.

“Rahm, I knew, was not enamored of my boss or of the American Jewish leaders whom he faulted for backing Netanyahu unconditionally,” Oren writes.

Later in the book, Oren recalls Emanuel referring to a settlement dispute between Israel and the U.S. as “a pimple on the ass of the U.S.-Israel friendship.”

7. White House Orders Senior Officials to Criticize Israel

In addition to privately embracing the anti-Israel fringe group J Street, the Obama administration sent top officials to speak at its first national conference in Washington, D.C.

Oren, who refused to participate in the event, reveals that Obama administration officials had direct orders to criticize Israel publicly.

Hannah Rosenthal, the administration’s former adviser on anti-Semitism, “issued her first denunciation not of anti-Semites, but rather of me for boycotting the summit,” Oren writes.

“Hannah eventually became a friend and I never took her comment personally,” he adds. “Nor did I believe that she acted on her own, since I later learned that some of the criticism emanated directly from the White House.”

AP

8. Hillary Clinton Refuses to Meet With Oren

Oren reveals that in the early days of his tenure, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to meet with him in person.

“I reached out to Hillary Clinton, asking for a private meeting, only to be rebuffed,” Oren recalls.

9. Hillary Blows Her Top

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton learned of Israeli plans to transform a slum in Jerusalem into a ritzy tourist mall, “she nearly blew her top,” according to Oren.

The slum was deemed controversial due to its location in an East Jerusalem neighborhood the administration considered as disputed.

“We practically had to scrape her off the ceiling,” according to a senior American official who spoke to Oren.

10. White House Wrongly Accuses Oren Of Interfering in U.S. Politics

When U.S.-Israel tensions hit a high point in 2010, Oren frantically sought to diffuse the hostility by setting up a meeting with then-Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod.

“I urged him to find a way out of a situation that I feared might become dangerous for Israel, but Axelrod calmly brushed this aside,” Oren recalls. “Instead, he accused me of urging congressmen to hold on until [the] 2012 [elections], that Obama would never get reelected. That charge of interfering in internal American politics could have rendered me persona non grata and resulted in my expulsion from the United States.”

11. Obama Withholds Vital Arms From Israel

After working furiously to secure a deal with U.S. officials for 20 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, Obama cancelled the arms sale, according to Oren.

“The impact, for Israel, was calamitous,” Oren writes. “Editorials—apparently fanned by official sources—suggested that the F-35s has been an Israeli demand, rather than an American offer.”

12. Robert Gates Has A ‘Visceral Dislike of Netanyahu’

A $60 billion U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia in 2010 sent Israeli officials scrambling.

U.S. and Israeli leaders saw the sale as an affront to the Jewish State’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME), a longstanding deal in which the United States has assured Israel’s military supremacy in the region.

“Such concerns [about maintaining the QME] unnerved Netanyahu in a July 6 meeting with [former Secretary of Defense] Robert Gates,” who had “long harbored a visceral dislike of Netanyahu,” according to Oren.

“The animus” between Netanyahu and Gates “was discernible in the Blair House reception room, where Netanyahu promptly took Gates to task for the Saudi sale.”

13. White House Orders Israel to Hold Off On Iran Strike

As the Iranian march for nuclear weapons hit a critical point in the summer of 2009, the Obama administration publicly affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself.

Behind the scenes, though, the White House ordered Israel to lay off Tehran.

“Off camera … the message was ‘Don’t you dare,’” Oren recalls. “Washington quietly quashed any military option for Israel.”

14. Obama Destroys ‘More Than 40 Years of American Policy’ Toward Israel

On the eve of a critical vote at the United Nations on a Palestinian-backed resolution to condemn Israeli settlements, Obama held a 50-minute phone call with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority .

Obama, during that call, promised to “renew America’s demand for a total freeze on Israeli construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.” He also promised to lend his support “for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines,” an unprecedented call from a U.S. president, Oren writes.

Israel “was never consulted about this conversation nor even informed,” Oren writes, claiming that the White House even lied about the conversation. “The White House spokesman insisted the subject was Egypt.”

“The Prime Minster’s Office had learned of Obama’s offer to Abbas from U.N. sources, not the United States, and was outraged,” Oren recounts. “The White House has overnight altered more than forty years of American policy” and “Israel felt abandoned.”

15. Susan Rice Yells At Oren

Following the White House’s move to leave Israel in the dark on the U.N. vote, Oren met with then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.

Rice sat in her New York office “brooding and peevishly tapping her forehead with her finger,” according to Oren.

“Israel must freeze all settlement activity,” Oren recalls her saying. “Otherwise the United States will not be able to protect Israel from Palestinian actions at the U.N.”

“’If you don’t appreciate the fact that we defend you night and day, tell us,’ Rice fumed, practically rapping her forehead. ‘We have other important things to do.’”

16. ‘The President is Going to Take On the Prime Minister’

Ahead of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual conference in Washington, a senior U.S. official told Oren that Obama was out to “take on” Netanyahu directly.

Both leaders were scheduled to give talks at the pro-Israel lobbying group’s annual confab.

“The president is going to take on the prime minster in front of AIPAC,” former White House Chief Of Staff Bill Daley told Oren. “And if he gets booed, so what?”

17. Obama Officials Embrace ‘Israel Lobby’ Canard

Writing in the New York Times after Netanyahu’s address to AIPAC, columnist Tom Friedman asked if “Netanyahu understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

“I called Tom the moment the article came online and urged him to retract it,” Oren recalls. “You’ve confirmed the worst anti-Semitic stereotype, that Jews purchase seats in Congress,” Oren informed him.

Friedman’s response: “For every call I’ve received protesting, I’ve gotten ten congratulating me for finally telling the truth. … Many of those calls were from senior administration officials.”

18. Senior State Department Official Curses at Oren

Disagreements between the United States and Israel reached another boiling point when the Palestinian Authority moved to gain unilateral recognition at the U.N.

Congressional law mandated that such a move should result in the closure of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Washington office, the cut off of U.S. aid to the PA, and the termination of all U.S. funding to any U.N. organization that recognized Palestine.

“Israel strongly endorsed all three repercussions, which the White House just as vehemently opposed,” Oren writes.

While pushing Israel’s cause at the State Department, Oren was chastised by Deputy Secretary Tom Nides.

“You don’t want the fucking U.N. to collapse because of your fucking conflict with the Palestinians, and you don’t want the fucking Palestinian Authority to fall apart either,” Nides purportedly said to Oren.

19. Obama Hearts Erdoğan

During a meeting at the White House with Israeli leaders, Obama allegedly expressed great support and faith in Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a notorious critic of Israel who has promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

“He’s not living in the sixteenth century,” Obama told the Israelis present in the meeting, according to Oren. “We could do much worse than have a bunch of Erdogans in the Middle East.”

20. Obama Keeps Israel In Dark About Syria Strikes

When the United States first decided to launch airstrikes against Syria, Israel was left in the dark, another first in the U.S.-Israel relationship, according to Oren.

The ambassador learned about the strikes while listening to the radio.

“The razor froze in mid-shave,” he writes. “Wiping the foam from my face, I rushed to the embassy. The once-sacred principle of ‘no surprises’ in the U.S.-Israel alliance had fallen into desuetude during the Obama period, but never to this depth on an issue so vital to our immediate security.”

21. Obama Only Backs Israel ‘Because That’s What the American People Want’

During yet another meeting between Obama and Netanyahu, the president attempted to reassure Israel that it would defend it in any war with Iran.

Obama revealed that he only backs Israel because a plurality of Americans demands it.

“If war comes, we’re with you, because that’s what the American people want,” Oren recalls Obama saying.

Chinese Intelligence at Center of OPM Hack

First reported there was Anthem, one of the largest healthcare providers that was hacked. 80 million personal records were compromised. What is notable is Anthem is part of the Blue Cross Blue Shield health coverage network and even more concerning is BCBS provides coverage to more that half of the federal government workforce.

Take note of the following fro Threatconnect.com:

“Anthem Themed Infrastructure & Signed Malware:
In September 2014, the ThreatConnect Intelligence Research Team (TCIRT) observed a variant of the Derusbi APT malware family, MD5: 0A9545F9FC7A6D8596CF07A59F400FD3, which was signed by a valid digital signature from the Korean company DTOPTOOLZ Co. Derusbi is a family of malware used by multiple actor groups but associated exclusively with Chinese APT. TCIRT began tracking the DTOPTOOLZ signature for additional signed malware samples and memorialized them within our Threat Intelligence Platform over time.
Analyst Comment: The DTOPTOOLZ signature has also been observed in association with Korean Adware that is affiliated with the actual DTOPTOOLZ Co. This adware should not be confused with the APT malware that is abusing the same digital signature.
Later, in mid-November we discovered another implant that was digitally signed with the DTOPTOOLZ signature. This implant, MD5: 98721c78dfbf8a45d152a888c804427c, was from the “Sakula” (aka. Sakurel) family of malware, a known variant of the Derusbi backdoor, and was configured to communicate with the malicious command and control (C2) domains extcitrix.we11point[.]com and www.we11point[.]com. Through our Farsight  Security passive DNS integration, we uncovered that this malicious infrastructure was likely named in such a way to impersonate the legitimate Wellpoint IT infrastructure.”

This brings us to the hack or rather simply sign-on as a root user of the 14 million personnel records of Office of Personnel Management (OPM) located in Colorado.

From Reuters:

U.S. employee data breach tied to Chinese intelligence

The Chinese hacking group suspected of stealing sensitive information about millions of current and former U.S. government employees has a different mission and organizational structure than the military hackers who have been accused of other U.S. data breaches, according to people familiar with the matter.

While the Chinese People’s Liberation Army typically goes after defense and trade secrets, this hacking group has repeatedly accessed data that could be useful to Chinese counter-intelligence and internal stability, said two people close to the U.S. investigation.

Washington has not publicly accused Beijing of orchestrating the data breach at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and China has dismissed as “irresponsible and unscientific” any suggestion that it was behind the attack.

Sources told Reuters that the hackers employed a rare tool to take remote control of computers, dubbed Sakula, that was also used in the data breach at U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc last year.

The Anthem attack, in turn, has been tied to a group that security researchers said is affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security, which is focused on government stability, counter-intelligence and dissidents. The ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.

In addition, U.S. investigators believe the hackers registered the deceptively named OPM-Learning.org website to try to capture employee names and passwords, in the same way that Anthem, formerly known as Wellpoint, was subverted with spurious websites such as We11point.com, which used the number “1” instead of the letter “l”.

Both the Anthem and OPM breaches used malicious software electronically signed as safe with a certificate stolen from DTOPTOOLZ Co, a Korean software company, the people close to the inquiry said. DTOPTOOLZ said it had no involvement in the data breaches.

The FBI did not respond to requests for comment. People familiar with its investigation said Sakula had only been seen in use by a small number of Chinese hacking teams.

“Chinese law prohibits hacking attacks and other such behaviors which damage Internet security,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The Chinese government takes resolute strong measures against any kind of hacking attack. We oppose baseless insinuations against China.”

MANY UNKNOWNS

Most of the biggest U.S. cyber attacks blamed on China have been attributed, with varying degrees of certitude, to elements of the Chinese army. In the most dramatic case two years ago, the U.S. Justice Department indicted five PLA officers for alleged economic espionage.

Far less is known about the OPM hackers, and security researchers have differing views about the size of the group and what other attacks it is responsible for.

People close to the OPM investigation said the same group was behind Anthem and other insurance breaches. But they are not yet sure which part of the Chinese government is responsible.

“We are seeing a group that is only targeting personal information,” said Laura Gigante, manager of threat intelligence at FireEye Inc, which has worked on a number of the high-profile network intrusions.

CrowdStrike and other security companies, however, say the Anthem hackers also engaged in stealing defense and industry trade secrets. CrowdStrike calls the group “Deep Panda,” EMC Corp’s RSA security division dubs it “Shell Crew,” and other firms have picked different names.

The OPM breach gave hackers access to U.S. government job applicants’ security clearance forms detailing past drug use, love affairs, and foreign contacts that officials fear could be used for blackmail or recruiting.

In contrast to hacking outfits associated with the Chinese army, “Deep Panda” appears to be affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, said CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch.

Information about U.S. spies in China would logically be a top priority for the ministry, Alperovitch said, adding that “Deep Panda’s” tools and techniques have also been used to monitor democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

An executive at one of the first companies to connect the Anthem and OPM compromises, ThreatConnect, said the disagreements about the boundaries of “Deep Panda” could reflect a different structure than that in top-down military units.

“We think it’s likely a cohort of Chinese actors, a bunch of mini-groups that are handled by one main benefactor,” said Rich Barger, co-founder of ThreatConnect, adding that the group could get software tools and other resources from a common supplier.

“We think this series of activity over time is a little more distributed, and that is why there is not a broad consensus as to the beginning and end of this group.”

Mexican Gulf Cartels Surveillance Systems

From Breitbart:

The former Tamaulipas governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores was charged on May 27, 2015 on two counts, money laundering and crimes against the United States.

MCALLEN, Texas — The U.S. federal government has formally announced that yet another former governor from Mexico has now become a fugitive sought by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District Of Texas announced Friday morning that former Tamaulipas governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores has been charged with money laundering and money laundering conspiracy charges.

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, Hernandez has been implicated in money laundering through a series of civil forfeiture cases accusing him of laundering bribe money that he received for government favors, as well as from Mexican drug traffickers including Los Zetas.

Hernandez, who was the governor from 2005 to 2010, is the second Tamaulipas governor to be criminally charged in the U.S. on money laundering charges connected to taking money from Mexican drug cartels. Tomas Yarrington Ruvalcaba, who served as governor before Hernandez, is currently facing money laundering and drug trafficking charges for his alleged role in helping the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas and other Mexican cartels.

It gets worse as Breitbart publishes the following:

Mexican authorities take down a complex surveillance system made up of a range of <a href=home security cameras, set up by the Gulf Cartel in the border city of Reynosa” width=”398″ height=”359″ />

REYNOSA, Tamaulipas – Once again, Mexican authorities have dismantled a complex video surveillance system set up by the Gulf Cartel in order to keep tabs on authorities, their rivals and their future victims.  Breitbart Texas reported on the discovery and destruction of a similar system in May.

This time, authorities seized 39 video surveillance cameras set up around the city under orders from the criminal organization, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Tamaulipas government revealed.

The seizure began on Tuesday evening, when state police officers spotted two men setting up one of the cameras in the Doctores (Doctor’s) neighborhood. Once in police custody, the two men told authorities that they had just finished setting up another 38 cameras around the city, the information provided by authorities revealed.

Under police guard, the two men took the authorities to the various spots where they had set up the cameras so that officers could take them down. The police did not release the names of the two suspects because the investigation into the cameras remains ongoing.

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, last month Mexican authorities had discovered a sophisticated surveillance network in which the Gulf cartel placed video cameras in at least 52 different spots around the city. Some of the cameras worked wirelessly and would be controlled remotely.

At the time, Mexican officials confirmed to Breitbart Texas that the Gulf Cartel used the surveillance network in an effort to try to stay one step ahead of law enforcement, as well as to track their victims.