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PARIS (AP) — The number of people linked to the Islamic State network that attacked Paris and Brussels reaches easily into the dozens, with a series of new arrests over the weekend that confirmed the cell’s toxic reach and ability to move around unnoticed in Europe’s criminal underworld.
From Belgium’s Molenbeek to Sweden’s Malmo, new names are added nearly daily to the list of hardened attackers, hangers-on, and tacit supporters of the cell that killed 130 people in Paris and 32 in Brussels. A computer abandoned by one of the Brussels suicide bombers in a trash can contained not only his will, but is beginning to give up other information as well, including an audio file indicating the cell was getting its orders directly from a French-speaking extremist in Syria, according to a police official with knowledge of the investigation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.
Ten men are known to be directly involved in the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris; others with key logistical roles then — including the bomber, a logistics handler, and a hideout scout — went on to plot the attack March 22 in Brussels. But unlike Paris, at least two people who survived the attack have been taken into custody alive, including Mohamed Abrini, the Molenbeek native who walked away from the Brussels international airport after his explosives failed to detonate.
But investigators fear it may not be enough to stave off another attack. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, another Molenbeek native whose charisma made him a natural draw to many in the Brussels neighborhood after he joined IS extremists in Syria, said before his death that he returned to Europe among a group of 90 fighters from Europe and the Mideast, according to testimony from a woman who tipped police to his location.
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In part from NYT’s: But only in the months since then has the full scale of Mr. Zerkani’s diligent work on the streets of Molenbeek and beyond become clear, as the network he helped nurture has emerged as a central element in attacks in both Paris and Brussels— as well as one in France that the authorities said last month they had foiled.
“Mr. Zerkani has perverted an entire generation of youngsters, particularly in the Molenbeek neighborhood,” the Belgian federal prosecutor, Bernard Michel, said in February.
But court documents and interviews with Molenbeek residents and activists, as well as with Belgian security officials, suggest that he had direct or indirect connections with several crucial figures who are now dead or under arrest in connection with the November massacre in Paris that killed 130 people and the bombings last month in Brussels that killed 32. Full article here.
(CNN) A top U.S. counterterrorism official in charge of ensuring terrorists do not make it into the United States said European countries can do more to screen terrorists because they don’t take full advantage of tools the U.S. has offered in the fight against terrorism.
“It’s concerning that our partners don’t use all of our data,” said Terrorist Screening Center Director Christopher Piehota in an exclusive interview with CNN. “We provide them with tools. We provide them with support, and I would find it concerning that they don’t use these tools to help screen for their own aviation security, maritime security, border screening, visas, things like that for travel.”
Piehota said the U.S. shares its watch lists with EU countries, but that EU countries don’t systematically utilize it to identify suspected terrorists or screen migrants coming.
The European Union does not utilize a central terror database; instead, each country maintains its own terrorist watch list that comes with its own unique set of standards for tracking terrorists. Further complicating matters the 26 European countries that operate inside the “Schengen zone” do not perform routine border checks.
Piehota said all European countries cooperate with the United States to varying degrees and information sharing has greatly improved in the wake of the ISIS threat.
The daunting task of guarding the United States from foreign terrorists, he says, has become more challenging with the evolving ISIS threat in Europe.
One chief concern is foreign nationals from visa-waiver countries who do not appear on any watch list could possibly slip into the U.S. to launch an attack. For example, would-be terrorists can surreptitiously travel to and from Syria from Europe and then travel to the U.S. without ever arousing the suspicion of government officials on either continent.
“There are many that we do know about. And unfortunately there are some that we do not know about,” Piehota said.
Counterterrorism officials like Piehota also worry about the ISIS terrorists believed to still be in Europe and possibly plotting future attacks. One such person is the man in the hat seen in the Brussels airport surveillance video who remains on the run.
“It’s highly concerning,” he said. “We make sure that we know as much as we can. And we take that information and we use it the best we can to minimize threats to our communities. But we can’t know everything all the time.”
European officials have acknowledged the gaps in coverage and communication in the weeks following the Brussels attacks.
“The fragmented intelligence picture around this dispersed community of suspected terrorists is very challenging for European authorities,” said Rob Wainwright, director of the European Police Agency known as Europol.
The EU’s Counter-Terrorism Chief Gilles de Kerchove told CNN that he was aware of problems in getting member states to act.
“I do my best to put pressure, to confront them with blunt figures, and we are making progress, but not quickly enough,” he said.
The European Union has been examining the sharing of passenger information for at least six years, and the European Parliament is expected to consider a measure related to that issue this month. Some members oppose the idea on privacy grounds.
“That will require difficult discussions with European Parliament, because we’re sensitive about balance between security and freedom,” de Kerchove said last month.
Piehota also echoed the sentiment from FBI Director James Comey that there’s risk with the U.S. plan of allowing 100,000 refugees into the U.S. a year by 2017 partially because of the lack of intelligence on people in Syria.
“Nothing we can guarantee is at a 100% level,” Piehota said, adding he believes the vetting process is rigorous with a layered approach of screening, evaluation and assessment for the refugees who will be cross-referenced with all the U.S. watch lists.
Piehota also addressed what he called “incorrect perceptions” about the U.S. watch lists, many that have been repeated by presidential candidates on the campaign trail claiming a majority of people on the lists are innocent Americans.
Although declined to say how many people are on the watch list, he did say Americans “comprise less than 0.5% of the total populations. Very small, controlled population,” adding that those on the list are consistently re-evaulated with 1,500 changes to the list on average per day. More here.
Navy Officer Accused of Spying for Foreign Power Held Secretly for 8 Months
The amphibious assault ship USS Boxer transits the East Sea during Exercise Ssang Yong 2016 on March 8. It’s been revealed that a U.S. Navy officer accused of spying was held in secret for eight months.
By Jeff Stein/Newsweek: A U.S. Navy officer accused of spying for an unidentified foreign power was secretly arrested last summer in an espionage investigation that is ongoing, authorities said Saturday.
The heavily redacted charge sheets say the unidentified officer gave secret information “relating to the national defense to representatives of a foreign government.” But the four-page document does not say exactly what information was provided, or for how long a period it was provided, how the information was transmitted or which nation it was provided to.
The multiple charges of espionage and attempted espionage, made public only on Friday, suggest the accused officer was under surveillance by Navy counterespionage agents for an extended period of time. The officer was arrested “about eight months ago,” according to a U.S. official who asked for anonymity in exchange for discussing some details of the case.
The name of the officer, a lieutenant commander who was assigned to a sensitive maritime patrol and reconnaissance group, is being withheld from the public “out of respect for the ongoing investigation” and the privacy rights of the accused, said the official.
The official did not rule out the possibility of further arrests in the case, which is being jointly pursued by both the FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS. The officer is being held in the Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake, Va.
The officer’s unit “provides airborne anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations from planes such as the P-8A Poseidon, P-3C Orion and unmanned MQ-4C Triton,” according to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper. The command of the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Force is headquartered at Hampton Roads Naval Support Activity in Norfolk, “although it’s not clear whether he was stationed there,” the paper said. The unit has wings at Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida, Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington state and Marine Corps Base Hawaii.
The Navy’s charge sheet said the officer is accused of three counts of attempted espionage, three counts of making false official statements and five counts of communicating defense information “to a person not entitled to receive said information.” It also said the officer provided a false address when he was on leave “rather than the actual foreign destination,” and failed to report contacts with foreign nationals.
The Navy also accused the officer, “a married man,” of procuring prostitutes ”on divers occasions” and having sex with “a woman not his wife,” a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or UCMJ.
The dates of the alleged espionage, the identity of the foreign spy service—if any—and the foreign nationals involved will not likely be disclosed until and if the Navy prefers court martial charges against the accused.
Adm. Philip S. Davidson, commander of Fleet Forces Command, will weigh the results of an Article 32 investigation, the military’s version of a grand jury, to determine whether a court martial is warranted.
The accused officer could face the death penalty if found guilty of the most serious espionage charges.
Under the UCMJ, a service member is eligible for the death penalty for espionage if found “guilty of an offense that directly concerns nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, early warning systems, or other means of defense or retaliation against large scale attack, war plans, communications intelligence or cryptographic information, or any other major weapons system or major element of defense strategy.”
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InquisitR: A U.S. Navy officer was charged with giving secrets to China and prostitution at the Norfolk Air Station in Virginia. It is believed that Lieutenant Commander Edward Lin gave secrets about vital communications systems, although the Navy has yet to determine how much and for how long.
CBS News reported that the Navy officer charged worked as a flight officer on an EP-3E Reconnaissance, a sensitive intelligence gathering aircraft. Lin is alleged to have given information on the aircraft’s communications system. The information he gave could be used to counter U.S. eavesdropping capabilities. Additional details here.
The heavily redacted documents released accused Lieutenant Commander Edward Lin of five counts of espionage and attempted espionage, three counts of making false official statements, and five counts of communicating information to a person not authorized to receive it.
Bloomberg: The Competitive Enterprise Institute is getting subpoenaed by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands to cough up its communications regarding climate change. The scope of the subpoena is quite broad, covering the period from 1997 to 2007, and includes, according to CEI, “a decade’s worth of communications, emails, statements, drafts, and other documents regarding CEI’s work on climate change and energy policy, including private donor information.”
My first reaction to this news was “Um, wut?” CEI has long denied humans’ role in global warming, and I have fairly substantial disagreements with CEI on the issue. However, when last I checked, it was not a criminal matter to disagree with me. It’s a pity, I grant you, but there it is; the law’s the law.
(I pause to note, in the interests of full disclosure, that before we met, my husband briefly worked for CEI as a junior employee. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.)
Speaking of the law, why on earth is CEI getting subpoenaed? The attorney general, Claude Earl Walker, explains: “We are committed to ensuring a fair and transparent market where consumers can make informed choices about what they buy and from whom. If ExxonMobil has tried to cloud their judgment, we are determined to hold the company accountable.”
That wasn’t much of an explanation. It doesn’t mention any law that ExxonMobil may have broken. It is also borderline delusional, if Walker believes that ExxonMobil’s statements or non-statements about climate change during the period 1997 to 2007 appreciably affected consumer propensity to stop at a Mobil station, rather than tootling down the road to Shell or Chevron, or giving up their car in favor of walking to work.
State attorneys general including Walker held a press conference last week to talk about the investigation of ExxonMobil and explain their theory of the case. And yet, there sort of wasn’t a theory of the case. They spent a lot of time talking about global warming, and how bad it was, and how much they disliked fossil fuel companies. They threw the word “fraud” around a lot. But the more they talked about it, the more it became clear that what they meant by “fraud” was “advocating for policies that the attorneys general disagreed with.”
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman gave the game away when he explained that they would be pursuing completely different theories in different jurisdictions — some under pension laws, some consumer protection, some securities fraud. It is traditional, when a crime has actually been committed, to first establish that a crime has occurred, and then identify a perpetrator. When prosecutors start running that process backwards, it’s a pretty good sign that you’re looking at prosecutorial power run amok.
And that approaches certainty when attorneys general start sending subpoenas to think tanks that ExxonMobil might have supported. What exactly would the subpoena prove? That ExxonMobil supported opinions about climate change? That the opinions tended to be congruent with its own interests? That this opinion might have been wrong, and if so, might have encouraged wrong beliefs in others? This is a description of, roughly, every person or organization in the history of the world, not excluding attorneys general. It’s also not illegal. Especially since, as the New York Times points out, “the company published extensive research over decades that largely lined up with mainstream climatology.” This isn’t preventing consumers from buying into a Ponzi scheme; it’s an attempt to criminalize advocacy.
I support action on climate change for the same reason I buy homeowner’s, life and disability insurance: because the potential for catastrophe is large. But that doesn’t mean I’m entitled to drive people who disagree with me from the public square. Climate activists have an unfortunate tendency to try to do just that, trying to brand dissenters as the equivalent of Holocaust deniers.
It’s an understandable impulse. It seems easier to shut down dissenters than to persuade people to stop consuming lots and lots of energy-intensive goods and services.
But history has had lots and lots of existentially important debates. If you thought that only the One True Church could save everyone from Hell, the Reformation was the most existentially important debate in human history. If you thought that Communist fifth columnists were plotting to turn the U.S. into Soviet Russia, that was also pretty existentially important. We eventually realized that it was much better to have arguments like these with words, rather than try to suppress one side of them by force of law.
Unfortunately those who wield the law forget that lesson, and we get cases like the CEI subpoena, intended to silence debate by hounding one side. The attorney general doesn’t even need to have the law on his side; the process itself can be the punishment, as victims are forced to spend immense amounts on legal fees, and immense time and money on complying with investigations. (And if the law were on the attorney general’s side in a case like this, then that’s a terrible law, and it should be overturned.)
Prosecutors know the damage they can do even when they don’t have a leg to stand on. The threat of investigation can coerce settlements even in weak cases.
The enemies of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and ExxonMobil should hold their applause. In a liberal democracy, every guerrilla tactic your side invents will eventually be used against you. Imagine a coalition of Republican attorneys general announcing an investigation of companies that have threatened state boycotts over gay-rights issues, and you may get a sense of why this is not such a good precedent to set.
The rule of law, and our norms about free speech, represent a sort of truce between both sides. We all agree to let other people talk, because we don’t want to live in a world where we ourselves are not free to speak. Because we do not want to be silenced by an ambitious prosecutor, we should all be vigilant when ambitious prosecutors try to silence anyone else.
FNC: The Islamic State is harnessing apps and websites in an effort to distribute its radio station, Al-Bayan, via the Internet, the Middle East Media Research Institute warns.
ISIS has released three versions of its radio app on the Android platform, MEMRI says in a report seen by FoxNews.com. The first two were “experimental,” and the most recent version was released in February of this year.
MEMRI says that the original links to download these apps were at one point posted on a website called the Internet Archive. A screenshot of the app provided by MEMRI shows a straightforward interface that reportedly gives users the choice between streaming content in either high- or low-quality.
The report also states that ISIS has created six websites to stream its radio content so far, with the most recent version created on April 2. (The first website was launched in July of last year.) The makers of the current version use a service called WhoisGuard to mask information about the site, as well as CloudFlare to protect its website from cyber attacks and to hide details about the server, according to MEMRI.
WhoisGuard is based in Panama, and CloudFlare has offices in both the United States and abroad.
Speaking to Fox Business last year on a related issue, CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince defended the service, saying that they work with domestic and international law enforcement agencies, and that these agencies actually sometimes prefer that terrorist-related sites use CloudFlare because it can make the sites easier to monitor.
WhoisGuard and the Internet Archive have not yet responded to a request for comment on this story from FoxNews.com.
On the ground, the ISIS radio station, Al-Bayan ( ‘to illustrate’ or ‘to uncover’ in English) is broadcast over FM frequencies in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. The radio station’s topics include religious content and military news. The app version of the Al-Bayan radio station and the Web version of the stations are said to feature the same streaming content.
The threats were made during a discussion program on “Voice of the Caliphate,” an elusive radio station operated by one of the extremist group’s newest affiliates. The so-called Khorasan Province has battled Afghan forces and the Taliban alike, carving out an enclave in Nangarhar, a rugged eastern province bordering Pakistan.
It has adopted the media strategy of its mother organization in Syria and Iraq, including the production of grisly, professionally made videos showing battles and the killing of captives. But in impoverished Afghanistan, where few have access to the Internet, radio could prove more effective at recruiting fighters and silencing critics.
The group is actively targeting other media outlets to prevent them from competing with its chilling broadcasts. Militants bombed a building housing two radio stations in the provincial capital, Jalalabad, in October, and attacked the local offices of the independent Pajhwok news agency and Voice of America in July.
The menacing broadcast in mid-December, in which a former local radio broadcaster called on reporters to either join ISIS or risk being hunted down and killed, could be heard across Jalalabad.
“It is a great concern for us because he knows all the journalists who are working locally,” said Shir Sha Hamdard, chairman of the Journalists’ Union of Eastern Afghanistan.
“He also knows that as journalists we do not take sides and that our only weapon is the pen. We’ve tried to talk to representatives of ISIS to make sure they know this but we haven’t been successful,” he said. He and other Jalalabad-based reporters asked that The Associated Press not name the ISIS broadcaster for their own safety.
ISIS radio can be heard across Nangarhar on an FM frequency for 90 minutes a day in both the Pashto and Dari languages. Programs include news, interviews, vitriol against the Afghan government and the Taliban, recruitment propaganda, and devotional music in multiple languages.
The message is clear: the Afghan government is a doomed “puppet regime” of the Americans. The Taliban are a spent force hijacked by Pakistan. The caliphate is coming.
“Soon our black flag will be flying over the (presidential) palace in Kabul,” an announcer crowed in a recent broadcast.
The ISIS affiliate “is against everything — free media, civil society, education, all of which they say are secular, un-Islamic,” said Haroon Nasir, a civil society activist in Nangarhar. He said the message likely resonates among young men in impoverished rural areas, where after nearly 15 years of war many have soured on both the U.S.-backed government and the Taliban.
In those areas — which make up most of Afghanistan — Internet access is spotty at best, and computers and smartphones are a luxury. Just 10 percent of Afghanistan’s 30 million people have access to the Internet.
But nearly everyone has a radio.
A 2014 study by Altai Consulting found that 175 radio and 75 television stations had been set up since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban — which had one radio network and banned television. Wind-up radios that operate without electricity or even batteries have been widely distributed since then.
ISIS militants are believed to use mobile broadcasting units and cross back and forth along the porous border with Pakistan, making them difficult to track. The National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, did not respond to requests for comment.
Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal, the spokesman for the Nangarhar police chief, said “Voice of the Caliphate” broadcasts had been banned and were rarely picked up, especially in Jalalabad.
But residents tell a different story. Jalalabad shopkeeper Janat Khan said ISIS radio is popular chiefly due to its novelty. “Most people are listening to them because they want to know about Daesh and its strategy,” he said, referring to the extremist group by its Arabic acronym. “The preachers are strong, their message is clear — they talk against the Taliban and against (President Ashraf) Ghani’s government.”
Although ISIS and the Taliban both want to impose a harsh version of Islamic rule, they are bitterly divided over leadership and strategy, with the Taliban narrowly focused on Afghanistan and ISIS bent on establishing a worldwide caliphate.
The U.S. State Department recently added the ISIS Afghan affiliate to its list of foreign terrorist organizations. It said the group emerged in January 2015 and is mainly made up of disenchanted former Taliban fighters.
Over the last six months the group has taken over four Nangarhar districts, where it has imposed the same violent interpretation of Islamic law championed by the ISIS group in Syria and Iraq, including the public execution of alleged informers and other enemies. In August, students at Nangarhar University staged a pro-ISIS demonstration. Security forces swooped in to make arrests and have since cracked down on campus activism nationwide.
As the group has expanded its reach, its media strategy has grown more sophisticated and more brutal.
“They have not only made every attempt to promote themselves through all mediums from mainstream media to social media, but they have also resorted to coercing tactics to force local media to publish their news and follow their agenda,” said Najib Sharifi, director of the Afghan Journalists’ Safety Committee.
“In areas where the government cannot provide sufficient security, media might resort to compromising their editorial independence out of fear — something that could make media turn into the propaganda machinery of Daesh.”
NYT: A terrorist hoping to buy an antiaircraft weapon in recent years needed to look no further than Facebook, which has been hosting sprawling online arms bazaars, offering weapons ranging from handguns and grenades to heavy machine guns and guided missiles.
The Facebook posts suggest evidence of large-scale efforts to sell military weapons coveted by terrorists and militants. The weapons include many distributed by the United States to security forces and their proxies in the Middle East. These online bazaars, which violate Facebook’s recent ban on the private sales of weapons, have been appearing in regions where the Islamic State has its strongest presence.
This week, after The New York Times provided Facebook with seven examples of suspicious groups, the company shut down six of them.
The findings were based on a study by the private consultancy Armament Research Services about arms trafficking on social media in Libya, along with reporting by The Times on similar trafficking in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
A seller based in Tripoli, Libya, offered components of a man-portable antiaircraft defense system, or Manpads, in a closed Facebook group.Credit Armament Research Services
1. The Weapons Have Included Heavy Machine Guns and Heat-Seeking Missiles
Many sales are arranged after Facebook users post photographs in closed and secret groups; the posts act roughly like digital classified ads on weapons-specific boards. Among the weapons displayed have been heavy machine guns on mounts that are designed for antiaircraft roles and that can be bolted to pickup trucks, and more sophisticated and menacing systems, including guided anti-tank missiles and an early generation of shoulder-fired heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles.
The report documented 97 attempts at unregulated transfers of missiles, heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, rockets and anti-matériel rifles, used to disable military equipment, through several Libyan Facebook groups since September 2014.
Last year ARES said it had documented an offer on Facebook to sell an SA-7 gripstock (pictured above), the reusable centerpiece of a man-portable antiaircraft defense system, or Manpads, a weapon of the Stinger class. Many of these left Libyan state custody in 2011, as depots were raided by rebels and looters. ARES said it documented Libyan sellers claiming to have two complete SA-7s for sale, two additional missiles and three gripstocks. An old system, SA-7s are a greater threat to helicopters and commercial aircraft than to modern military jets.
Machine guns, rifles and a shotgun advertised on Facebook groups in Libya.
2. Others Are the Standard Arms of Militant and Terrorist Groups
Machine guns and missiles form a small fraction of the apparent arms trafficking on Facebook and other social media apps, according to Nic R. Jenzen-Jones, the director of ARES and an author of the report. Examinations by The Times of Facebook groups in Libya dedicated to arms sales showed that sellers sought customers for a much larger assortment of handguns and infantry weapons. The rifles have predominantly been Kalashnikov assault rifles, which are used by many militants in the region, and many FN FAL rifles, which are common in Libya.
All of these solicitations violate Facebook’s policies, which since January has forbidden the facilitation of private sales of firearms and other weapons, according to Monika Bickert, a former federal prosecutor who is responsible for developing and enforcing the company’s content standards.
Images from Facebook groups selling weapons in Iraq.
3. Weapons Sales Greased by Social Media Sites Have Become a Feature of Many Conflicts
The use of social media for arms sales is relatively new to Libya. Until a Western-backed uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011, which ended in his death at the hands of an armed mob, the country had a tightly restricted arms market and limited Internet access. But social media-based weapons markets in Libya are not unique. Similar markets exist in other countries plagued in recent years by conflict, militant groups and terrorism, including arms-sales Facebook groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
On Monday, The Times shared links for seven such groups with Facebook to check whether they violated the rules. By Tuesday, Facebook had taken down six of the groups. Ms. Bickert said that one Facebook group — which displayed photographs of weapons but only discussed them and expressly forbade sales — had survived the company’s scrutiny.
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Online weapons markets in Iraq and Libya.
4. Facebook’s Rules on Arms Sales Are Related to Changes in How Facebook Is Used.
Ms. Bickert described the company’s policies as evolutionary, reflecting shifts in its social media ecosystem.
“When Facebook began, there was no way to really engage in commerce on Facebook,” she said. But in the past year, she noted, the company has allowed users to process payments through its Messenger service, and has added other features to aid sales. “Since we were offering features like that, we thought we wanted to make clear that this is not a site that wants to facilitate the private sales of firearms.”
It is not clear how extensive arms trafficking on the site has been, but the rate of new posts has been unmistakably brisk, with many groups offering several new weapons a day. Mr. Jenzen-Jones said that ARES documented 250 to 300 posts about arms sales each month on the Libya sites alone, and that sales appeared to be trending up. Over all, using data from arms-sales Facebook groups across the Middle East, he said, “We’ve got about 6,000 trades documented, but it’s probably much bigger than that.”
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A Facebook user in Syria shared an image of Islamic State fighters.
5. Facebook Relies on Users to Report the Arms Trafficking It Bans
Ms. Bickert said the most important part of Facebook’s effort “to keep people safe” was to make it easy for users to notify the company of suspected violations, which can be done with a click on the “Report” feature on every Facebook post.
In this way so-called Community Operations teams — Facebook employees who review the reports in dozens of languages — can examine and remove offending content. How effective the policy is, in practice, is unclear. Several groups from which the photographs for this article were downloaded operated on Facebook for two years or more, accumulating thousands of members before Facebook announced its ban on arms sales.
This trafficking occurred in countries where the Islamic State is at its most active and where armed militias or other designated terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, have a persistent presence. In all four countries, government forces do not control large areas of territory and civil society is under intense pressure. Christine Chen, a Facebook spokeswoman, said the company relied on the nearly 1.6 billion people who visit the site every month to flag offenders. “We urge everyone who sees violations to report them to us,” she said.
Pistols have been widely sold and sought on Facebook in Libya.
6. In Libya, Widespread Pistol Sales on Facebook
ARES has documented many types of buyers and sellers. These include private citizens seeking handguns as well as representatives of armed groups buying weapons that require crews to be operated effectively, or appearing to offload weapons that the militias no longer wanted. Different markets have different characteristics. In Libya, fear of crime seemed to drive many people to buy pistols, Mr. Jenzen-Jones said. “Handguns are disproportionately represented,” he said. “They are widely sought after — primarily for self-defense and particularly to protect against carjackings — with many prospective buyers placing ‘wanted’ posts.” They were also expensive, ranging from about $2,200 to more than $7,000 — a sign that demand outstrips supply.
Military weapons originating in the United States have been sold through Facebook groups in Iraq.
7. Weapons Provided to Allies in Iraq Have Filled Facebook Sales Pages
In Iraq, the Facebook arms bazaars can resemble inside looks at the failures of American train-and-equip programs, with sellers displaying a seemingly bottomless assortment of weapons provided to Iraq’s government forces by the Pentagon during the long American occupation. Those include M4 carbines, M16 rifles, M249 squad automatic weapons, MP5 submachine guns and Glock semiautomatic pistols. Many of the weapons shown still bear inventory stickers and aftermarket add-ons favored by American forces and troops.
Such weapons have long been available on black markets in Iraq, with or without advertising on social media. But Facebook and other social media companies seem to provide new opportunities for sellers and buyers to find one other easily; for sellers to display items to more customers; and for customers to peruse and haggle over a larger assortment of weapons than what is available in smaller, physical markets.
A TOW launcher, a wire-guided anti-tank missile system, was advertised on a Facebook group in Syria with this message: “There is a TOW launcher, brand new, whoever wants it should contact us via private messages or WhatsApp.”
8. In Syria, Weapons Identical to Those Distributed to Rebels by the United States Are Offered for Sale
Similarly, weapons identical to those provided by the United States to Syrian rebels have also been traded on Facebook and other social media or messaging apps. In one recent example, a seller in northern Syria — who identified himself as a student, photographer and sniper — offered a pristine-looking Kalashnikov assault rifle that he said came from the Hazm Movement, which received weapons from the United States before the movement was defeated by the Nusra Front, a Qaeda affiliate. He noted on Facebook that the rifle was new and had “never fired a shot,” and hinted of either a bonus gift or a discount.
In another example, from October, a Facebook arms-trading group offered a “new TOW launcher,” referring to a wire-guided anti-tank missile system of the same type provided to rebels by the United States and other countries. The post included a phone number for the seller, which linked to WhatsApp, a messaging service. Reached on WhatsApp this week, the seller, whose profile picture shows the face of a corpse, said that he had sold the launcher but added, unconvincingly, that he could not recall the price.
A Facebook page in Libya offered an array of military and police equipment.
9. Social Media Pages Help Armed Groups Find Other Military Equipment
Items offered for sale on Facebook in Libya also included much of the other equipment sought by militias or terrorists for their operations. These included ammunition, bulletproof plates for flak jackets, rifle scopes, hand grenades, two-way tactical radios, fragmenting antipersonnel warheads for rocket-propelled grenade launchers, uniforms (including police uniforms) and forward-looking infrared cameras, used for night imaging.
Ms. Bickert said that using Facebook to help sell items not considered weapons, like bulletproof plates, did not violate the company’s rules. Since the same groups selling plates were also selling weapons, however, they were removed this week.
Online arms trafficking of this magnitude is an “eye opener,” said Nicolas Florquin, research coordinator for the Small Arms Survey, the Geneva-based international research center that underwrote the ARES study, part of an effort to supplement trafficking investigations by the United Nations Panel of Experts. Without addressing Facebook or any particular social-media company directly, he added, “Obviously there has to be more attention to monitoring and controlling it.”
Posts on Facebook advertising trips by boat from Turkey to Greece in a “safe way.”
10. Facebook Groups Also Offer Residents a Means to Flee
One of the arms-trading pages that Facebook took down this week included a stray advertisement, among ones for weapons and crates of 82-millimeter mortar rounds. It was for people looking to escape the miseries and dangers that have settled over some of the territory where such Facebook pages have been a feature of the arms trade. The advertisement offered open-ocean boat rides. Passage to Greece, it said, was “guaranteed.” The advertisement was of a type. In a region struggling with large-scale violence and overrun by militias, terrorists and the many forces fighting them, Facebook groups dedicated to refugee trafficking promise the chance to escape.
