Category Archives: al Qaida al Nusra Boko Haram

Meet ISIS’ Special Operations Unit, Katibat al-Battar

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Tip of the Spear? Meet ISIS’ Special Operations Unit, Katibat al-Battar

Bellingcat: On a mild November night last year, nine EU citizens roamed the streets of Paris with guns and explosives, murdering and injuring hundreds of civilians. In the days and weeks afterward, France declared emergency laws, Britain voted to expand the bombing of ISIS in Syria and ISIS supporters launched their own social media response on Twitter with #PrayforRaqqah.

But many of the most important questions around Paris remain unanswered. Where did these men come from? Were they part of a group? Who instructed them to commit these acts?

The following investigation reveals that a little-known group of battle-hardened and highly capable Libyans are the common factor behind many of the major terrorist attacks in Europe and North Africa since 2014.

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Meet Katibat Al-Battar Al-Libi

When groups of Libyans involve themselves in foreign jihads, the West normally suffers. From the jihad in 1980s Afghanistan, through to running al-Qa’ida in Pakistan in the 2000s, Libyans fighters have played a significant role in most recent jihadist conflicts. As recently as 2007, the US Naval Academy at West Point released a study of seized Islamic State personnel files, which were found in a US Army raid in Iraq. To the author’s surprise, a disproportionate number of fighters were Libyan, and specifically from the town of Dernah, in the northeast Libya. Almost 20% of the Islamic State’s fighters in Iraq were Libyan, and of that figure, over 60% of them were from Dernah. According to the study, the city and its surrounds contained ‘the greatest concentration of jihadi terrorists anywhere on the planet’.

Unsurprisingly then, in 2012 as the Arab Spring caught fire, entire brigades of fighters from Dernah were among the first foreign fighters to arrive in Syria. Rather than immersing themselves with ISIS or Jabat al-Nusra, the Libyans created their own unit, Katibat al-Battar al-Libi, with the catching slogan ‘بالذبح جئناكم’ or; ‘We came to slaughter you’. Battar is a reference to one of the Prophet’s swords – known for its impact on the neck of his enemies. The group’s inaugural 2012 video is available here. Many of the Libyan members of KBL were seasoned veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan; battle-hardened fighters.

Over time, as ISIS’ power grew in Syria, KBL sensibly pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. With its cadre of experienced fighters, KBL began fighting for the ISIS cause in Syria and Iraq. In January 2015, KBL captured and brutally killed dozens of Peshmerga. Arabic media reports in July 2015 that 350 KBL fighters supported the ISIS presence in Baiji, Iraq, where a prominent leader, Abu Dujana Al-Libi was killed.

Blogs holding ISIS content indicate that KBL was one of the first groups in Syria to participate effectively in both fighting and relief work, playing a fundamental role in ISIS’ capture of Taftanaz airport and Khan Tuman.  Various reports estimate KBL’s strength in Syria from the low hundreds to over 1400. The group began life as a semi-autonomous commando unit fighting under the overall ISIS banner, but has clearly since expanded its role to include relief work in Syria and mass training camps in Libya (see below).

The group’s role as an elite unit of ISIS would have huge consequences for the Syrian war, but also for Europe, Libya and North Africa.

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Europeans mix with KBL

In 2013 and 2014, European fighters began travelling to Syria in larger numbers. With its sterling reputation in Syria growing, KBL became an attractive group for Francophone fighters, specifically Belgians, French and Tunisians. Although the exact reason is unknown, one explanation for Belgians joining KBL is language; many Belgian-Moroccans are from eastern Morocco, whose Maghrebi dialect is very similar to Libyan Arabic.

During 2014, KBL records indicate a considerable number of Belgians died fighting for KBL in Syria. In addition to the domestic campaign, it appears that during 2014, KBL decided to expand its operations to Europe. One of the most prominent Belgians within KBL at the time was Abdelhamid Abaaoud. In order to evade the authorities, Abaaoud faked his own death in a published list of KBL martyrs, and he appears in social media with a number of KBL individuals during 2014.

Abaaoud was at the centre of a string of terrorist plots in Europe, before the Paris attacks in November 2015. It is likely that KBL introduced the concept of ‘Inghimasi’ operations to Abaaoud, and it is possible, if not probable that KBL – via Abaaoud – assisted, sponsored or directed at least four terrorist attacks in Europe in 2014-2015;

What is clear is that a considerable number of Europeans, Tunisians and Moroccans joined Katibat al-Battar as the group’s legend in Syria grew. Many of these fighters died in Syria or Iraq, fighting for Islamic State. However, in hindsight, the mixing of EU passport holders with perhaps the most violent, ruthless and capable group of Libyans in Syria dramatically escalated the terrorist threat to Europeans, both at home and abroad.

 

From Libya to Syria, and back again

Whilst KBL’s Belgians were busy in Syria plotting internal and external attacks, dozens of experienced KBL fighters returned to Dernah in Libya, creating the first ISIS province outside of Syria and Iraq – Wilayat Barqa. Some KBL fighters reorganised themselves under the Islamic Youth Shura Council. An ISIS delegation from Raqqah, including the Yemeni Abu Bara al-Azdi and the Saudi Abu Habib Al-Jazrawi visited IYSC in September 2014 and collected allegiances from IYSC aligned fighters.

KBL’s headquarters are now believed to be in Dernah, with secondary branches in Syria and Iraq. Online videos of KBL fighters generally indicate possession of small arms, mortars and vehicle mounted anti-aircraft. A KBL affiliated Facebook group has also been identified; the group’s icon is Jihadi John.

Reports indicate that the group runs training camps in Libya focused on assassinations, mass murder, weapons training and bomb-making. KBL’s is also reported to have an operations room in Dernah for terrorist activities in Tunisia.

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According to several sources, the activities of KB are distributed across three teams:

  • Guarding IS leaders; this is mostly made up of Tunisian nationals and elements from the dissolved Iraqi Baath regime;
  • Liquidation Teams: in charge of assassinating those who refuse to pledge allegiance to Al-Baghdadi; unverified reports point to KBL’s involvement in the killing of Ansar Al-Sharia’s former leader, Mohamed Zahawi;
  • Mass Casualty ‘Inghimasi’ Operations: Inghimasi are well-trained terrorists who carries both light arms and explosives and fights until he runs out of ammunition. Though this information cannot be entirely verified, KBL affiliated fighters are thought to have played a role in the Tunisian attacks at the Bardo Museum and in Sousse

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(Source: akherkhabaronline.com)

KBL are reportedly actively working in attracting young Tunisians to take part in fighting, following an initial training phase in its Libyan training camps. Nevertheless, the group’s strategies aimed at recruiting Western/European nationals remain ambiguous, particularly following the suspension of its official social media accounts.

The Age of the “Inghimasiyun”

Since joining ISIS, KBL have fostered and grown the concept of the Inghimasi; which is the jihadi equivalent of the kamikaze or the Nazi einsatzgruppen. The concept has gripped ISIS, who now broadcast their Inghimasi as heroes. Whilst there is no smoking gun pointing to KBL’s specific role in ‘Inghimasi’ style attacks at the Brussels museum, Paris, Sousse, the Corinthia hotel or the Bardo Museum in Tunis, it is important to note a) the modus operandi is entirely consistent with KBL’s Inghimasi operations b) many of the operatives were Tunisians and Belgians and c) All of these attacks came after KBL’s arrival in Dernah, in March 2014.

 

Going forward

One of the most important questions remains unanswered; to what extent are KBL subservient to ISIS, and do they retain a degree of operational autonomy? The evidence suggests KBL, moreso than ISIS, assisted or directed many of the major terrorist attacks in the past few years. Logically, then, from a Western perspective, Katibat al-Battar are the most dangerous unit within ISIS.

Perhaps of most concern to the West is KBL’s freedom to operate in Libya, with its Wilayat Barqa ISIS enclave. Whilst fighting other militias and subject to occasional airstrikes, the group is under far less pressure in Libya than its colleagues in Syria and Iraq.  It could be argued ISIS’ Libya branch presents a greater terrorist threat to Europe than its Syrian counterpart: mass training camps, proximity to Europe and the tourist beaches of Africa, and most importantly, operational pedigree – honed during years of conflict in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Stolen: Fears of ISIS ‘Dirty Bomb’

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‘Highly dangerous’ radioactive material stolen, sparking fears of Isis ‘dirty bomb’

‘We are afraid the radioactive element will fall into the hands of Daesh’

Independent: Iraq is searching for “highly dangerous” radioactive material stolen last year amid fears it could have fallen the hands of Isis jihadis.

The material, stored in a protective case the size of a laptop, went missing from a US-owned storage facility in Basra last November, according to leaked environment ministry documents.

An unnamed senior security official with knowledge of the theft said: “We are afraid the radioactive element will fall into the hands of Daesh (Isis).

“They could simply attach it to explosives to make a dirty bomb”.

Click here for a photo essay 74 photos.

The document, dated 30 November and addressed to the ministry’s Centre for Prevention of Radiation, describes “the theft of a highly dangerous radioactive source of Ir-192 with highly radioactive activity belonging to SGS from a depot…in the Rafidhia area of Basra province”.

An anonymous senior environment ministry official based in the city told Reuters the device contained up to 10 grams (0.35 ounces) of Ir-192 “capsules”, a radioactive isotope of iridium also used to treat cancer.

The material is classed as a Category 2 radioactive by the International Atomic Energy Agency – meaning it can be fatal to anyone in close proximity to it in a matter of days or even hours.

So far there is no indication that the material has fallen into the hands of Isis – who do not control this part of southern Iraq – but they have begun using chemical weapons.

The terror group attacked Kurdish forces with mustard gas during a battle near Erbil – capital of the Kurds’ autonomous region in Iraq last August.

It is believed to be the first time chemical weapons have been used in the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

A “dirty bomb” combines nuclear material with conventional explosives to contaminate an area with radiation, in contrast to a nuclear weapon, which uses nuclear fission to trigger a vastly more powerful blast.

A security official said the initial investigation suggested the perpetrators had specific knowledge of how to handle the material and how to gain access to the facility.

Ramadi.jpg

An Iraqi pro-government soldier standing in the ruins of Ramadi. Isis currently only controlled territory in the north and west of the country

There were “No broken locks, no smashed doors and no evidence of forced entry”.

An operations manager for Iraqi security firm Taiz, which was contracted to protect the facility, declined to comment, citing instructions from Iraqi security authorities.

A spokesman for Basra operations command, responsible for security in Basra province, said army, police and intelligence forces were working “day and night” to locate the material.

Two Basra provincial government officials said they were told to work with local hospitals to identify possible victims on 25 November.

One said: “We instructed hospitals in Basra to be alert to any burn cases caused by radioactivity and inform security forces immediately”.

Additional reading here.

Who is Fighting in Syria and Who Wins?

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A mind-boggling stew of nations is fighting in Syria’s civil war

MilitaryTimes: Armies and militias from more than a dozen countries have joined the Syria conflict, making for a mind-boggling and dangerous stew of shifting and competing alliances.

Even as a proposed cease-fire is scheduled to begin as early as this week, more nations are escalating their roles in the nearly 5-year-old civil war: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey said they may send ground troops to fight.

Here’s how different countries are currently aligned:

Pro-Syrian government

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad are backed by two nations, Russia and Iran, and many Shiite militias from across the region who are organized by Iran. The combatants include:

Syrian government troops

Iran

Afghan Shiite militia

Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia

Iraqi Shiite militia

Russia. Russian airstrikes target the Islamic State and what Russia says are other “terrorist” groups. But the U.S. military says most Russian airstrikes are aimed at opposition groups threatening Assad’s forces.

Anti-Syrian government

Many rebel forces fighting to overthrow the Syrian government are backed by arms, funds and airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition. The CIA vetted Syrian rebel groups and helped train them in Jordan to use advanced anti-tank weapons against Assad’s forces. Saudi Arabia and Qatar supplied the weaponry and funds. These rebels are being supported by:

Jordan

Saudi Arabia

Turkey

Qatar

United Arab Emirates

United States

Israel, on Syria’s southern border, provides some assistance to rebel forces fighting the Syrian government and has also launched airstrikes against Syrian and Hezbollah targets to prevent the transfer of “game changing” technology and weapons to Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.

Anti-Islamic State 

The U.S.-led coalition conducting airstrikes against Islamic State forces in Syria and Iraq includes:

Australia

Bahrain

Canada

France

Jordan

Saudi Arabia

Turkey

United Arab Emirates

United Kingdom.

Russia is not part of the U.S.-led coalition, though it has also hit Islamic State positions.

Other fighters

Kurdish militia from Turkey, Iraq and Syria are fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS. But the Kurds are sometimes aligned with the Syrian government and seen as a threat by Turkey, which has fought for years against a Kurdish separatist movement threatening its territorial sovereignty. Syrian Kurds are backed by Russia, the United States and Iraqi Kurdish groups.

The Islamic State, a vicious al-Qaeda spinoff, and Jabhat al Nusrah, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria that works with many Sunni Arab opposition groups in Syria, have attracted foreign fighters from across the Arab world and Europe. Both have expanded during the chaos in Syria.

Who wins in the end?

The Syrian ceasefire is a big win for Russia, Assad, and Iran

AEI: The Syrian ceasefire agreement of February 11 is a big win for the Russians and the Syrian regime. Russia, Iran, and Syria are in the midst of a major military offensive that has allowed them to besiege Aleppo and has them poised to make gains across the battlefield. This so-called “cessation of hostilities” agreement allows them to consolidate and prepare for further advances, while preventing the opposition that the US ostensibly supports from attempting to undo any of their gains.

It does not require the Assad coalition to allow humanitarian access to the hundreds of thousands they have just trapped in and around Aleppo itself, and it leaves them fully in control of what humanitarian aid goes to the other areas they themselves are besieging and deliberately starving. It was concluded without the participation of the opposition, and is thus an imposition of a truce on the fighters the US is theoretically supporting at a moment when they have lost vital ground.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura (L-R) arrive for a news conference in Munich, Germany, February 12, 2016. REUTERS/Michael Dalder.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura (L-R) arrive for a news conference in Munich, Germany, February 12, 2016. REUTERS/Michael Dalder.

The Russians, moreover, define all of the opposition groups in northern Syria as either ISIS or Jabhat al Nusra. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today,

… if liberation of the city that has been taken by illegal armed groups can be qualified as aggression, then, well, yeah, probably. But to attack those who have taken your land is necessary – is a necessary thing. First of all, this has been done by Jabhat al-Nusrah, and also the western suburbs of Aleppo are still being controlled together with Jabhat al-Nusrah by Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham.

The Russians will read this agreement as letting them continue operations against all opposition groups in Aleppo and  continue their encirclement, siege, and targeting of that city.  They will therefore continue to weaken the non-Jabhat al Nusra, non-ISIS opposition now concentrated in Aleppo, and likely strengthen the hands of the terrorist organizations they purport to be attacking.

This “cessation of hostilities” also continues the policy of requiring the opposition to make concessions in order to get the regime temporarily to stop committing what the UN has called crimes against humanity.

This agreement is a ceasefire in the manner of the Minsk agreements that shaped the supposed ceasefires in Ukraine — ceasefires that have been nominally in effect throughout all of the major Russian and separatist military offensives since February 2015. The Russians posed as a neutral third party when in fact they are a belligerent in the conflict, and have continued to escalate and de-escalate military operations in Ukraine in order to extract concessions from the Ukrainian government.

Not only will this Syrian “cessation of hostilities” also fail, but it will fail in a way that further alienates the non-ISIS, non-al Qaeda Sunni opposition groups and populations on which any meaningful political settlement of the conflict in accord with America’s vital national security interests must rely.

Syria: 11.5% have been either killed or injured

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11.5 percent of the population have been either killed or injured, 45 percent of the population is displaced and no end in sight.

Syria death toll almost twice as high as previously thought: Report

Over 470,000 Syrians are alleged to have died as a result of the war and collapse of infrastructure

A new report suggests that the death toll in Syria’s long-running civil war may be much higher than previous estimates.

The Syrian Centre for Policy Research (SCPR) reports that around 470,000 people have been killed in the conflict as opposed to the figure of 250,000 cited by the UN. Around 11.5 percent of the population have been either killed or injured, according to the report.

Many of the deaths, previously unreported, are caused by the collapse of infrastructure caused by the devastating conflict.

“We use very rigorous research methods and we are sure of this figure. Indirect deaths will be greater in the future, though most NGOs and the UN ignore them,” the report’s author, Rabie Nasser, told the Guardian.

Forty-five percent of the population is displaced and life expectancy in the country had dropped from 70 in 2010 to 55.4 in 2015, the report said. Nearly 14 million Syrians have lost their source of livelihood.

The report also warned that different armed players in the Syrian war had begun carving the country to suit their proxies.

“During 2015, the Syrian economy became more shattered and fragmented, mainly dominated by the fighting subjugating powers,” the report said.

“Each of these powers is rebuilding its own independent economic entities and foundations in which resources are being reallocated to serving its objectives and creating incentives and drawing loyalty among their narrow group of followers against people’s needs and aspirations.

“The absence of a framework for national dialogue which brings together the Syrian parties, which can represent and unify Syrians to create an inclusive process to overcome the conflict, has aggravated the state of socioeconomic fragmentation and enhanced the conflict economy.”

SCPR’s research was carried out from inside Syria, until recently based in Damascus.

Based on SCPR’s estimates, Syria’s death toll now exceeds the mortality for the US-led war in Iraq, which according to a 2013 study totaled 461,000.

Russian bombers and Iranian troops have helped the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad besiege the key city Aleppo, partially held by rebel forces since 2012, over the past fortnight, derailing peace talks in Geneva and threatening Europe with another huge influx of refugees.

Tens of thousands of Syrians are stranded on the Turkish border north of Aleppo, where observers say 500 fighters and civilians have been killed since the bombing started on 1 February.

In Munich on Thursday, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov will host foreign ministers from the 17-nation Syria contact group, in a meeting billed by Kerry as a moment of truth for the floundering peace process.

Washington wants a ceasefire and humanitarian access to besieged rebel cities but has threatened an unspecified “Plan B” if talks fail, as tension mounts with Moscow over its air campaign.

“There is no question… that Russia’s activities in Aleppo and in the region right now are making it much more difficult to be able to come to the table and to be able to have a serious conversation,” Kerry said this week.

America’s special envoy for the fight against the Islamic State group (IS), Brett McGurk, said Russia’s bombing campaign was “directly enabling” the jihadists.

While Moscow has promised to bring “new ideas” for kick-starting the peace process to Munich, Russia and Iran are adamant the rebels in Aleppo are just as much “terrorists” as IS and there can be no settlement until they have been militarily defeated.

The rebels say they will not return to talks in Geneva, pencilled in for 25 February, unless government sieges and air strikes end.

Read more:

Leaders agree to ‘full cessation of hostilities’ in Syria within 1 week: Kerry #SyriaWar

President’s Day, Was George Washington a Spy?

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The Spymaster’s Toolkit

CIA: Long before General William Donovan recruited spies to advance the American war efforts during World War II as Director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), predecessor to the CIA, General George Washington mastered the art of intelligence as Commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

Washington was a skilled manager of intelligence. He utilized agents behind enemy lines, recruited both Tory and Patriot sources, interrogated travelers for intelligence information, and launched scores of agents on both intelligence and counterintelligence missions. He was adept at deception operations and tradecraft and was a skilled propagandist. He also practiced sound operational security. Washington fully understood the value of accurate intelligence, employing many of the same techniques later used by the OSS and CIA.

As we celebrate the 284th birthday of the first American President, we highlight some of the tradecraft employed to secure our independence from the British and offer insights on its use today. Were it not for the use of secret writing, concealment devises, propaganda, and intercepted communications, there may have been a very different outcome to the War of Independence.

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SECRET WRITING

Revolutionary War: American agents serving abroad composed their intelligence reports using invisible ink. George Washington believed this would “not only render his communications less exposed to detection, but relieve the fears of such persons as may be entrusted in its conveyance.”

Communicating via invisible ink required the use of several chemical compositions. One mixture was used to write with disappearing ink, the other mixture was applied to the report to make it legible. Despite their invisible communications, it is estimated that the British intercepted and decrypted over half of America’s secret correspondence during the war.

CIA: The CIA has declassified several documents that provided recipes for making invisible ink. One recipe instructs: “Take a weak solution of starch, tinged with a little tincture of iodine. This bluish writing will soon fade away.” A mixture for exposing secret writing included “iodate of potassium, 5 grams, with 100 grams of water, and 2 grams of tartaric acid added” but warned, “run a hot iron over the surface being careful not to scorch the paper.”

During the Cold War, a major advancement in secret writing technology was the shift from liquid invisible inks to dry systems. The KGB was one of the first foreign intelligence services to employ a dry method. The CIA’s Office of Technical Services in the Directorate of Science and Technology spent considerable time researching Soviet systems and finally succeeded not only in “breaking” them, but in anticipating where its KGB counterpart would go next in the never-ending search for more secure systems. By the end of the Cold War, a kind of tacit convergence had emerged as both sides applied new techniques that used very small, almost undetectable quantities of chemical in secret writing messages. In the words of one CIA chemist, it was like “uniformly spreading a spoonful of sugar over an acre of land.”

CONCEALMENT DEVISES

Revolutionary War: Agents used a variety of modified objects to conceal their secret messages.  One device was a wafer-thin lead container that would sink in water, or melt in fire, thus destroying its contents. The device was small enough that an agent could swallow it if no other means of discarding were available. This was done as a last resort as ingestion was typically followed by a severe bout of lead poisoning. The lead container was eventually replaced by a silver, bullet-shaped container that could be unscrewed to hold a message and which would not poison a courier who might be forced to swallow it.

CIA:  A concealment devise can be any object used to clandestinely hide things. They are typically ordinary, every-day objects that have been hollowed out. The best concealment devises are ones that blend in with their surroundings and call no attention to themselves. They can be used to hide messages, documents, or film. Some examples of concealment devises include hollowed out coins, dead-drop spikes, shaving brushes, and makeup compacts.

PROPAGANDA

Revolutionary War: During the American Revolution, the British had a shortage of soldiers so they hired almost 30,000 German Hessian auxiliary forces to fight against the Americans. The Continental Congress devised a propaganda campaign to encourage the Hessian mercenaries to defect to America. The campaign included offering land grants to those mercenaries fighting for the British on American soil. The offers were written in German on leaflets disguised as tobacco packets. A mock-defector ran through the mercenaries’ camps encouraging others to defect as well. As part of the campaign, Benjamin Franklin forged a letter to the commander of the Hessians, “signed” by a German prince. The letter instructed the commander to let the wounded mercenaries die. This dealt a blow to the morale of the Hessians. Between 5,000 and 6,000 Hessian mercenaries deserted from the British, in part because of American propaganda.

CIA: Propaganda campaigns use communication to alter a population’s beliefs and views thus influencing their behavior. There are three types of propaganda: white, black, and grey. White propaganda openly identifies the source and uses gentle persuasion and public relations techniques to achieve a desired outcome. For example, during the Persian Gulf War, the CIA airdropped leaflets before some Allied bombing runs to allow civilians time to evacuate and encourage military units to surrender. Black propaganda, on the other hand, is misinformation that identifies itself with one side of a conflict, but is truly produced by the opposing side – like Franklin sending the letter “from” a German prince. Grey propaganda is the most mysterious of all because the source of the propaganda is never identified.

INTERCEPTED COMMUNICATIONS

Revolutionary War: The Continental Congress regularly received quantities of intercepted British mail. General Washington proposed to “contrive a means of opening them without breaking the seals, take copies of the contents, and then let them go on. By these means we should become masters of the whole plot.”

CIA: Clandestinely opening, reading and resealing envelopes or packages without the recipient’s knowledge requires practice. ‘Flaps and seals’ opening kits were used in the 1960s. A beginner’s kit offered the basic tools for surreptitious opening of letters and packages. Once mastered, an advanced kit with additional tools was used. Many of the tools were handmade of ivory and housed in a travel roll.

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Washington employed the use of many other intelligence gathering techniques still in use today to secure our independence and freedom from Great Britain. Not only is he The Father of His Country, but he is heralded as a great spymaster. Upon the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, a defeated British intelligence officer is quoted as saying, “Washington did not really outfight the British. He simply out-spied us.”