Category Archives: Cyber War
ISIS in Pakistan and 51 countries Sourced for IED’s
Islamic State group in competition for recruits in Pakistan
KARACHI, Pakistan (AP)— Trying to lure him into the Islamic State group, the would-be recruiter told Pakistani journalist Hasan Abdullah, “Brother, you could be such an asset to the Ummah”— the Islamic community. Abdullah replied that he was enjoying life and had no plans to join the jihadis.
“The enjoyment of this life is short-lived. You should work for the Akhira” — the Afterlife, the recruiter pressed.
IS had its eye on Abdullah not because he adheres to any extremist ideology but because, as a journalist, the group believed he could be a boon to its propaganda machine, Abdullah told The Associated Press, recounting his meeting with the recruiter.
His encounter was a sign of how the Islamic State group is looking for sophisticated skills as it builds its foothold in new territory: Pakistan. It is courting university students, doctors, lawyers, journalists and businessmen, and using women’s groups for fundraising. It is also wading into fierce competition with the country’s numerous other militant groups, particularly the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida in the Subcontinent, the new branch created by the veteran terror network.
Here in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, IS loyalists have set up their strongest presence, carrying out multiple attacks in the past year and setting up networks.
The port city of some 20 million people on the Arabian Sea has always been a favorite for militants to operate. Wealthy districts running on the city’s profitable commerce hold potential for fundraising, while the crowded, cramped poorer districts that have spread around the city provide recruits and places to hide. It also gives recruiters links to other parts of the country, since its population is full of people who have migrated from tribal regions or Afghanistan, looking for work.
The Karachi police’s top counterterrorism official, Raja Umer Khitab, warns that IS has great potential to grow in Pakistan, not only because of its large reservoir of Sunni extremists but also because of the virulent anti-Shiite sentiment among their ranks. Hatred of Shiites and attacks against them are a keystone of the Islamic State group’s ideology and one source of its appeal among some hard-line Sunnis as it set up its self-declared “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria.
IS first announced its presence in Pakistan with a bloody attack in May in Karachi in which gunmen boarded a bus carrying Shiites, ordered them to bow their heads, then opened fire, killing 45. The gunmen left behind a tattered piece of paper proclaiming, “Beware … We have entered the battlefield for retribution and the implementation of Shariah.”
Since then, it has killed more than 35 policemen in targeted attacks, attacked two schools and killed rights activist Sabeen Mehmud, who was gunned down in her car with her mother at her side.
IS was able to expand into two tribal regions near the border with Afghanistan — Bajour and Orakzai — when Taliban leaders there switched allegiance to the Islamic State group. The IS branch in neighboring Afghanistan is also aggressively trying to expand its presence, putting it in direct competition with the Taliban.
The number of IS loyalists in Pakistan is not known. Government officials only recently admitted that they have a presence and insist loyalists here have no known operational links to the IS leadership in Iraq and Syria. Still, in one of the first warnings by an official about IS, intelligence chief Aftab Sultan told a Senate committee earlier this month that hundreds of Pakistanis have gone to fight in Syria, and some are now coming home to Pakistan to recruit.
One way IS militants are trying to recruit and build is through women. One academy for women in Karachi’s Baloch Colony neighborhood recruited women by playing IS videos in the classrooms, Khitab told the AP. The 20 female students then reached out to middle-class and wealthy Karachi women, urging them to donate their religious tithes to the IS cause of establishing a caliphate.
Several women were detained, including the wife of a suspected IS operative, and were released after questioning, Khitab said.
IS recruiters have been stalking university campuses. For example, the suspected mastermind in the bus attack, Saad Aziz, was a graduate of the U.S.-funded Institute of Business Administration in Karachi.
A professor at the Institute, Huma Baqai, said there are radicalized professors teaching in some of the country’s top universities. They “are using the classrooms to mold (students’) minds,” she said. “There is no scrutiny in what happens in the classroom.”
An intelligence official told the AP that security officials have interrogated several university professors suspected of supporting IS and trying to recruit students. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to talk to the press.
“Finding people who are willing to strap on a suicide vest and blow themselves up is easy. There are hundreds, thousands,” said Abdullah, the journalist. But the educated are a bigger prize. He said he knows two other journalists whom IS tried to enlist. Abdullah said IS probably sought him because he was known from his work writing on extremism in the region and has met many militants personally.
Abdullah said his courtship by IS began when he received a message on social media from someone offering information for him for a story. Abdullah didn’t hear from him again until weeks later, when a man using the same name approached Abdullah as he had lunch in a park outside his office. The man told Abdullah he closely followed his writings — then said he was from the Islamic State group. Abdullah quizzed him about militants he knew to verify his claims. Near the end of the conversation, the man noted that many professionals were joining IS.
“This was basically his invitation to me to join their rank,” Abdullah said. And the man made his pitch.
Professionals can hold leadership posts or be involved in the group’s prolific and powerful propaganda machine, which includes sophisticated videos produced with the latest technology and vigorous use of social media.
Al-Qaida in particular is pursuing a similar caliber of recruits. Khitab said it isn’t clear who is winning the competition but there are known instances of al-Qaida militants in Pakistan crossing over to IS. Most notably, Khitab said, al-Qaida operatives Abdullah Yusuf and Tayyab Minhas defected to IS and are believed to have orchestrated much of the group’s violence in Karachi.
The past stereotype of a militant as a tribesman from the mountains in traditional garb with bandoliers of ammo slung over his shoulder has been replaced, said analyst Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University in Washington.
The new generation comes from “well-educated, cosmopolitan, university educated Pakistanis from middle-class backgrounds who can navigate our globalized space whether virtually or physically with facility and confidence.” They can use social media, cross borders and fit “seamlessly into global societies.”
“They are the new force multipliers of terrorist groups,” he said.
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Islamic State IED Sources?
WiB: Islamic State builds its improvised explosive devices using components from 51 different companies in 20 countries. That’s the startling conclusion of a new report from Conflict Armament Research.
“These findings support growing international awareness that [Islamic State] forces in Iraq and Syria are very much self-sustaining — acquiring weapons and strategic goods, such as IED components, locally and with ease,” said James Bevan, CAR’s executive director.
The group’s investigation, spanning 20 months, took researchers to Kirkuk, Mosul and Kobani alongside anti-Islamic State groups including the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Unit, the Iraqi Federation Policy and the Kurdistan Regional Security Council.
Some products Islamic State used in its IEDs are commercially available, including cell-phones and transistors. Products such as aluminum paste, urea and other chemicals as well as detonators are also widely available in the region.
CAR mapTurkey and Iraq boast large mining and agriculture industries that rely on these products. For this reason, these products are rarely, if ever, subject to transfer controls and export licensing that could help prevent such goods from moving across border with such ease.
Potential bomb components that are subject to controls, such as detonators, are still easy for Islamic State to acquired due to their popularity among farmers. “Licensing alone has not been sufficient to prevent acquisition by IS forces,” CAR reports.
Islamic State IEDs. Photo via CAR
“In all identified cases, producers have lawfully traded components with regional trade and distribution companies,” the investigation concludes.
“These companies, in turn, have sold them to smaller commercial entities. By allowing individuals and groups affiliated with IS forces to acquire components used in IEDs, these small entities appear to be the weakest link in the chain of custody.”
Due to their proximity to Islamic State territory, Turkish firms have been the main supplier of IED parts. “With 13 companies involved in the supply chain, Turkey is the most important choke point for components used in the manufacture of IEDs by IS forces,” CAR explains, adding that “proximity is a major reason why the goods traded by Iraqi and Turkish companies appear throughout the supply chains of components that IS forces use to manufacture IEDs.”
Dual-purpose technologies with civilian and military uses have long played a role in irregular warfare. In Vietnam, the Viet Cong made small bombs out of rubber bands, mason jars and drink cans. Similarly, the Irish Republican Army became highly adept at building out IEDs out of commercial materials and explosives the group smuggled from Libya.
The IED Islamic State allegedly used to destroy a Russian passenger jet in October 2015
The device the IRA used in the bombing of Brighton’s Grand Hotel on Oct. 12 1984 — Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet were the targets — used a delay made from a video recorder and a memo park timer, which allowed for the bomb to be planted almost a month before its detonation. Five people died, but Thatcher and the cabinet survived.
In the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, IEDs have become insurgents’ weapons of choice. In 2007, IEDs were responsible for three out of five combat deaths in Iraq and one in four in Afghanistan. The Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System found that in 2009, 56 percent of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan resulted from IEDs, a figure that increased to 63 percent in 2011.
CAR’s report should make it clear — with Islamic State benefiting from an extensive, albeit informal, bomb-supply network, the IED problem is not going away.
The Letter: Declassified but Somewhat Redacted
The Letter
ODNI: The Department of Justice has released today in redacted form a previously classified 2002 letter from former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo of the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel addressed to former Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Presiding Judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
The letter was designed to address certain questions that Judge Kollar-Kotelly raised during her first briefing on May 17, 2002, concerning certain collection activities authorized by President George W. Bush shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, referred to as the President’s Surveillance Program. As described in the publicly released Inspectors General reports concerning the PSP dated July 10, 2009 (published April 25, 2015 and September 21, 2015), Judge Kollar-Kotelly was permitted to read the letter, but was not authorized to retain a copy or take notes. The 2002 letter purports to generally outline the scope of the President’s legal authority to conduct possible electronic surveillance techniques after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Beginning in 2004, the Department of Justice thoroughly reexamined the factual underpinnings and legal analysis for the PSP culminating in a legal opinion issued by the Office of Legal Counsel on May 6, 2004. (That opinion is also publicly available in redacted form)
Additional Background
As previously released in the IC on the Record posting of December 21, 2013, President Bush authorized the NSA, via a series of classified authorizations beginning in October 2001, to collect three “baskets” of information, including: (1) the contents of certain international communications (which was later referred to as the Terrorist Surveillance Program); and the bulk collection of non-content (2) telephony and (3) Internet metadata, subject to various conditions. NSA’s content interception activities under the TSP were limited to the acquisition of specific international communication (i.e., to or from the United States) involving persons reasonably believed to be associated with al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations. Over time, these presidentially-authorized activities were transitioned to the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The collection of communications pursuant to the TSP ended in 2007, and the Government transitioned this collection to be undertaken pursuant to FISA authority and orders of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Later, in August 2007, Congress enacted the Protect America Act as temporary authority to provide for the acquisition of certain communication content. The PAA, which expired in February 2008, was replaced by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which was enacted in July 2008 and remains in effect.
Today, content collection targeting non-U.S. persons reasonably believed to be located overseas for foreign intelligence purposes is conducted pursuant to section 702 of FISA. No U.S. person or person located in the United States may be intentionally targeted pursuant to section 702. The bulk collection of Internet metadata under the PSP was transitioned to the authority of the FISA in July 2004 (and ceased in December 2011, when the U.S. Government decided to not seek reauthorization from the FISC).The bulk collection of telephony metadata under the PSP was transitioned to the authority of the FISA in May 2006. In November 2015, the USA FREEDOM Act ended the NSA’s collection of telephone metadata in bulk, and provided a new mechanism for the Government to obtain the targeted production of call detail records relating to authorized investigations to protect against international terrorism through applications to the FISC.
The transition of PSP activities to authority of the FISA is described in greater and more specific detail in documents previously disclosed in IC on the Record.
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As noted by the Bush White House Archives:
Fact Sheet: President Bush Has Kept America Safe
President Bush Fundamentally Reshaped Our Strategy To Protect The American People
“Because of … the efforts of many across all levels of government, we have not suffered another attack on our soil since September the 11th, 2001.”
President George W. Bush (March 8, 2008)
On December 17, President Bush visited the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and discussed efforts to protect the security and liberty of the American people. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush took the fight to the enemy to defeat the terrorists and protect America. The President deployed all elements of national power to combat terrorism, which had previously been considered primarily a “law enforcement” issue. He transformed our military and strengthened our national security institutions to wage the War on Terror and secure our homeland. The President also made missile defense operational and advanced counterproliferation efforts to help prevent our enemies from threatening us, and our allies, with weapons of mass destruction.
Secured the Homeland
- Protected our Nation and prevented another attack on U.S. soil for more than seven years, modernized our national security institutions and tools of war, and bolstered our homeland security. Under the President’s watch, numerous terrorist attacks have been prevented in the United States. These include:
- An attempt to bomb fuel tanks at JFK airport;
- A plot to blow up airliners bound for the East Coast;
- A plan to destroy the tallest skyscraper in Los Angeles;
- A plot by six al Qaeda inspired individuals to kill soldiers at Fort Dix Army Base in New Jersey;
- A plan to attack a Chicago-area shopping mall using grenades; and
- A plot to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago.
- Arrested and convicted more than two dozen terrorists and their supporters in America since 9/11.
- Froze the financial assets in the United States of hundreds of individuals and entities linked to terrorism and proliferation.
- Doubled the Border Patrol to more than 18,000 agents, equipped the Border Patrol with better technology and new infrastructure, and effectively ended the process of catch and release at the border. Increased border security and immigration enforcement funding by more than 160 percent and constructed hundreds of miles of fencing and vehicle barriers.
- Instituted a process to screen every commercial air passenger in the country, launched credentialing initiatives to better identify passengers, and expanded the Federal Air Marshal Program. Replaced the multiple watchlists that were in place prior to 9/11 with a single, consolidated watchlist, and incorporated biometrics in screening and identifying individuals entering our country. Created US-VISIT to screen foreign travelers and prevent terrorists from entering America. Required secure identification at our ports of entry to better monitor individuals entering the United States.
- Invested more than $38 billion in public health and medical systems, created a biothreat air monitoring system, and developed a national strategy and international partnership on avian and pandemic flu.
‘History – assuming it is written by free men and women not intimidated into silence by the fear of attracting the terrorists’ notice – will be exceedingly kind to this president.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Sept. 16, 2007)
Waged the Global War on Terror
- Removed the Taliban from power and brought freedom to the 25 million people of Afghanistan.
- Freed 25 million Iraqis from the rule of Saddam Hussein, a dictator who murdered his own people, invaded his neighbors, and repeatedly defied United Nations resolutions.
- Captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda leaders and operatives in more than two dozen countries with the help of partner nations. September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is in U.S. custody and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in 2006. Removed al Qaeda’s safe-haven in Afghanistan and crippled al Qaeda in Iraq, including defeating al Qaeda in its former stronghold of Anbar Province.
Transformed Our Approach to Combating Terrorism After the 9/11 Attacks
- Increased the size of our ground forces and number of unmanned aerial vehicles and strengthened special operations forces by increasing resources, manpower, and capabilities. Increased the Defense Department’s base budget more than 70 percent since 2001, including increased funding for military pay and benefits, research, and development. Started moving American forces from Cold War garrisons in Europe and Asia so they can deploy more quickly to any region of the world. Modernized and transformed the National Guard from a strategic reserve to an operational reserve.
- Forged a new, comprehensive cybersecurity policy to improve the security of Federal government and military computer systems and made protecting these systems a national priority.
- Improved cargo screening and security at U.S. ports and increased containerized cargo screening overseas.
- Established a more unified, collaborative intelligence community under the leadership of a Director of National Intelligence to ensure information is shared among intelligence and law enforcement professionals so they have the information they need to protect the American people while respecting the legal rights of all U.S. persons, including freedoms, civil liberties, and privacy rights guaranteed by Federal law.
- Consolidated 22 agencies and 180,000 employees under a new agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to foster a comprehensive, coordinated approach to protecting our country.
- Advocated for and signed into law the USA PATRIOT Act, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, and a modernization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
- Shifted the FBI’s focus from investigating terrorist attacks to preventing them. Created the National Security Branch at the FBI, which combines the FBI’s counterterrorism, counterintelligence, intelligence, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) elements under the leadership of a senior FBI official.
- Created the Terrorist Screening Center and the National Security Division at the Department of Justice.
Invigorated International Alliances And Partnerships To Make America Safer And More Secure
- Partnered with nations in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere on intelligence sharing and law enforcement coordination to break up terrorist networks and bring terrorists to justice.
- Transformed NATO to face 21st century threats, including strengthening the Alliance’s capabilities against WMD and cyber attacks, while leading the international military effort in Afghanistan.
- Established the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and other multilateral coalitions to stop WMD proliferation and strengthen our ability to locate and secure nuclear and radiological materials around the world. Dismantled and prevented the reconstitution of the A.Q. Khan proliferation network, an extensive, international network that had spread sensitive nuclear technology and capability to Iran, Libya, and North Korea.
- Worked with European partners to limit Iran’s ability to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles and finance terrorism, and initiated targeted sanctions against Iran’s Quds Force. Gathered support for and won passage of three Chapter VII United Nations Security Council resolutions that impose sanctions on Iran and require it to suspend its uranium enrichment and other proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities.
- Established the Six Party Talks framework in partnership with China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia. Obtained a commitment from North Korea to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs. Since November 2007, USG experts have supervised North Korea’s activities to disable its plutonium production capability.
- Persuaded Libya to disclose and dismantle all aspects of its WMD and advanced missile programs, renounce terrorism, and accept responsibility for prior acts of terror. Normalized our relations with Libya as a result.
- Signed agreements for missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland to help protect America and its allies from the threat of WMD delivered by ballistic missiles. Obtained NATO endorsement of plans to deploy missile defense assets in Europe.
Iran Denies U.S. Travel Visas
Oh, but wait to whom exactly? Investors? Nah…to members of Congress…..uh huh But we normalized relations right?
Iran Denies Travel Visas to U.S. Lawmakers
FreeBeacon: Iran has denied travel documents to three U.S. lawmakers who sought to observe the country’s Friday elections and ensure that they were carried out fairly, according to information provided to the Washington Free Beacon.
The Iranian regime delayed for weeks and ultimately ignored multiple visa requests by three House lawmakers who sought permission to travel to the country in order to monitor the elections held last Friday. Observers say the elections ushered in another crop of hardline, anti-American officials.
The congressmen, including Reps. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.), and Frank LoBiondo (R., N.J.), personally delivered their visa applications to the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington, D.C., several weeks ago.
The lawmakers sought to observe the recent elections, as well as visit the country’s nuclear sites and meet with American hostages currently being held in Iran. While at the embassy, they provided Iranian diplomats with a list of their priorities for the visit.
The Iranian government failed to respond to these requests despite assurances from officials that the matter would be dealt with in a timely fashion. Iran has yet to explain why it did not respond to the congressmen.
Pompeo and the other lawmakers said Iran’s behavior indicates that it has something to hide from the United States and that the country cannot be trusted to uphold promises made under the recent nuclear agreement. They also criticized the Obama administration for not advocating on their behalf.
“Our straightforward and sincere visa applications have been met with mockery and delay from Iran, revealing this regime’s desire to hide from the American public,” Pompeo, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee of Intelligence, told the Free Beacon on Monday. “I am hopeful that the next U.S. president will critically examine the utility of President Obama’s nuclear deal and put America’s interests ahead of political legacy.”
Pompeo further described Friday’s election in Iran as a “sham” that served to enable the country’s hardline government.
“Because the fanatical Ayatollah holds ultimate power, February 26 was more of a selection of the next group of radicals by the current radicals, than a true election by the people,” he said. “Iranian state television has declared a national victory for the hardliners—politicians who declared that Israelis ‘aren’t human’ and who called for the execution of the pro-democracy Green Movement leaders were selected.”
Early election results indicate the hardliner candidates dominated the election, in part because most moderates were disqualified from participating in advance.
Iran’s Guardian Council, which is controlled by the Supreme Leader, is believed to have disqualified around 60 percent of the potential candidates, including around 99 percent of those viewed as reformists.
“The bulk of the disqualified candidates represent comparatively pragmatic elements of the ruling elite,” Saeed Ghasseminejad, an Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, explained in a policy briefing last week. “On the other hand, most of the approved contenders are radical revolutionaries—devotees of the supreme leader with close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It is mathematically impossible for the less-hardline factions to win at the ballot box.”
“As a result, those supposed ‘moderates’ who were approved have been forced to round off their party lists with hardline candidates,” Ghasseminejad said.
LoBiondo and Zelden said that Iran’s refusal to grant them travel documents is a sign that the country is not seeking to boost ties with the U.S. as a result of the nuclear deal.
“In this supposed ‘new era of openness and cooperation,’ it is disappointing—but not surprising—that our request to visit Iran and monitor these elections was met with a closed door,” said LoBiondo, chair of the House’s CIA subcommittee.
“Furthermore, with the implementation of the nuclear deal and with Americans still detained in Tehran, it is perplexing why the Obama administration refuses to advocate on behalf of our official Congressional visit to Iran on such critical national security issues.”
“It’s unfortunate that Iran has not yet granted our request for visas to observe Iran’s election and for other productive purposes. The American people and rest of the free world still deserve first hand confirmation of what present day reality is in Iran. I look forward to Iran showing that it is a partner in peace by issuing our visas so that we can meet with Iranian leadership, visit nuclear sites, and meet with American hostages,” said Zeldin, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
*** Western corporations have been doing business in Iran for decades despite sanctions, especially so since 2013;
US-listed companies doing business in Iran: $540 million in revenue and counting
QZ: Economic sanctions on Iran have been getting tougher in recent years, and the United States tightened the screws a little more last summer with the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (PDF).
One unusual aspect of that law is that it started requiring companies traded on US stock exchanges to disclose more about the business they’re doing with Iran, and the Securities and Exchange Commission created the clunkily named IRANNOTICE filing to help them do it.
Companies were already beginning to disclose more about their ties to Iran, Syria, Cuba and other countries non grata (at least in US eyes) under pressure from the SEC. Now they must be systematic about it—and disclose gross revenue and net profits wherever possible.
Quartz’s partial tally: more than $540 million in gross revenue and $15.5 million in profits for US-listed companies from their business with Iran in 2012—and that’s just from 30 or so large companies that have made the disclosures since mid-February.
The numbers underscore the difficulty of maintaining tight sanctions in a global economy. But they also hide a lot of nuance and variation.
Companies based outside the US accounted for 99% of the revenue and three-quarters of the profit. (They made the disclosures because they list shares or American Depository Receipts on US markets.)
In fact, a big chunk of the total came from one company: $414 million in revenue for Statoil ASA, the Norwegian oil and gas company, from Statoil’s contracts with the National Iranian Oil Co.
Statoil also said it has terminated its agreements with Iran, abandoned it licenses there, and “will not make any investments in Iran under present circumstances.”
That’s a common refrain in the disclosures we saw: Many, though not all, of the disclosed transactions reflected companies wrapping up old business en route to cutting most or all ties with the Islamic republic. Typically, the transactions hadn’t been prohibited before the new rules kicked in.
Among the other noteworthy disclosures:
ING Groep said it collected €58 million in revenue and €395,000 in profits from repayment of old loans and a collection of frozen Iranian bank accounts. (Of course, in June, ING also settled allegations by the US Treasury and federal prosecutors that it hid transactions with Cuba and helped finance some sales to Iran, by agreeing to pay $619 million in penalties. It if keeps its nose clean for 18 months, the prosecutors will drop their charges.)
The biggest disclosure by a US company came from auto-parts maker TRW Automotive Holdings, which said it collected $8.3 million in revenue and $377,000 in profits from non-US subsidiaries that “sold products to customers that could be affiliated with, or deemed to be acting on behalf of, the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization” — one of the Iranian entities on the federal government’s massive list.
Under broad rules defining corporate “affiliates,” TRW’s transactions forced investor Blackstone Group to file its own disclosure. And Carlyle Group disclosed that a European portfolio company, Applus Servicios Technologicos, collected €1.19 million in revenue (and €200,000 in profits) from Iranian customers “that could be affiliated with the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization.” Similarly, Hertz had to report that a French affiliate of investor Clayton, Dubilier & Rice had received €2.5 million in payments from Iranian interests to an account at Bank Melli last year. And Apollo Global Management disclosed that portfolio company LyondellBasell Industries (Apollo funds owned 19.6%) reported collecting €4.2 million in revenue and €2.4 million in profit last year from Iranian entities.
Thomson Reuters reported $2.4 million in revenue and $426,000 in profits from selling news and intellectual-property and financial data to Iran-linked entities.
Other big Iran-related disclosures included GlaxoSmithKline at £19.7 million in revenue and £2.8 million in profits, and AstraZeneca at $14 million in revenue and $6 million in profits, both through distributors. Glaxo said that, after a review of the business, it “intends to supply only products of high medical/public health need (as determined using criteria set by the World Health Organization) from its Pharmaceuticals and Vaccines businesses.” AstraZeneca says it has a US license to do some business with Iran, but so far has sold only drugs from outside the US to distributors there.
Amusingly, at least for observers, there doesn’t seem to be a lower threshold to the disclosure requirement. So Dell, the Texas computer company, disclosed a whopping £106.13 ($169.90 at the time) in revenue from Iran, collected by a United Kingdom subsidiary to Quest Software, which Dell said last year it would acquire. The fees were paid by a unit of Bank Melli, which the US government links to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, for maintenance licenses on software that helps search email and other communications. Drafting Dell’s 374-word disclosure probably cost the company more than the licenses brought in. (Dell says it canceled the service contract and won’t do further business with Bank Melli.)
Other picayune disclosures include Hyatt Hotels, which said the Park Hyatt Hamburg collected $9,300 for 33 room nights under a preferred-rate arrangement with Europaeisch-Iranische Handelsbank, which is on the US Treasury’s Blocked Persons List. And CME Group said it received $3,150 in revenue for selling market data to Iran’s Government Trading Group and a European subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company.
al Qaeda Making a Comeback
NBC: The content was the usual anti-Saudi Arabian screed, sprinkled with threats against America — but the news was Asiri’s sudden willingness to join the terror group’s PR campaign. For years, the man who tried to take down planes with underwear and parcel bombs had laid low, as al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate tried to protect him from U.S. drone strikes.
In 2016, however, a resurgent al Qaeda is emerging from the shadows. While ISIS has been soaking up headlines, its older sibling has been launching attacks and grabbing territory too, and U.S. intelligence officials tell NBC News they are increasingly concerned the older terror group is poised to build on its achievements.
“Al Qaeda affiliates are positioned to make gains in 2016,” James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, warned the House Intelligence Committee Thursday.
Because of those far-flung affiliates, al Qaeda “remains a serious threat to U.S. interests worldwide,” Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress recently.
After seizing a large segment of Iraq and Syria, beheading Western hostages on camera and slaughtering civilians in the heart of Paris, ISIS has eclipsed its extremist rival as the biggest brand in global jihad.
But U.S. officials tell NBC News that al Qaeda — though its core in Pakistan has been degraded by years of CIA drone strikes — is now experiencing renewed strength through its affiliates, led by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen and the Nusra Front in Syria. Clapper called the two groups al Qaeda’s “most capable” affiliates in his House testimony Thursday.
Both branches have expanded their territorial holdings over the last year amid civil wars. Russian air strikes against the Nusra Front, and CIA drone attacks on AQAP leaders, have set them back, but have not come close to destroying them.
Al Qaeda has not managed to attack a Western target recently, but it continues to inspire plots. There is no evidence December’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, California was directed by al Qaeda, but Syed Rizwan Farook, who carried out the attack with his wife Tashfeen Malik, appears to have been radicalized by al Qaeda long before the rise of ISIS. He was a consumer of videos by al Qaeda’s Somalia affiliate and the AQAP preacher Anwar al Awlaki, court records show.Al Qaeda attacks on hotels in Burkina Faso in January and Mali in November, which together killed dozens of people, appeared to affirm the threat posed by the terror group’s Saharan branch, al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, or AQIM.
Stewart added that intelligence officials are also “concerned al Qaeda could reestablish a significant presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, if regional counterterrorism pressure deceases.”
In Yemen, AQAP has benefitted from the power vacuum created by the Houthi rebels’ uprising, and the air war on the Houthis by Saudi Arabia.
AQAP last April seized the city of Mukalla, the capital of Hadramout province and a port city with a population of some 300,000. It looted a bank of more than $1 million in cash, U.S. officials said, and released 300 inmates from jail.
Since then, the group has expanded its territory in the provinces of Abyan and Shabwa, its traditional strongholds.
“AQAP’s expansion is unchecked because there is no one on the ground to put any pressure on the organization,” noted Geoffrey Johnsen, a Yemen expert. “What is left of Yemen’s military is too busy fighting other enemies to engage AQAP, and the Saudis are focused on rolling back the Houthis. In the midst of Yemen’s civil war, AQAP is able to pursue more territory and to plot, plan, and launch attacks.”
The CIA is watching closely. Jalal Bala’idi, a prominent AQAP field commander, was killed in an agency drone strike in February.
AQAP’s seizures of territory have “allowed them to operate more openly, have access to a port, and have access to other kinds of infrastructure that has certainly benefitted them,” a U.S. intelligence official told NBC News. At the same time, he said, the U.S. has “managed to remove many significant figures from the battlefield and keep AQAP somewhat at bay.”
Al Qaida’s Syrian affiliate gets less public attention than others. Western media reporting sometimes refers to the Nusra front as a Syrian rebel group, without mentioning that it’s part of the global terrorism organization.
But Nusra is as well-organized and disciplined as any al Qaeda affiliate, U.S. intelligence officials say. Although it is now focused on defeating Assad, its battle tested fighters could pose a risk to the West in the years ahead.
“Jabhat al Nusra is a core component of the al Qaeda network and probably poses the most dangerous threat to the U.S. from al Qaeda in the coming years,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in a recent report. “Al Qaeda is pursuing phased, gradual, and sophisticated strategies that favor letting ISIS attract the attention — and attacks — of the West while it builds the human infrastructure to support and sustain major gains in the future and for the long term.”
U.S. air strikes have set back a group of al Qaeda operatives in Syria known as the Khorasan Group, which embedded with Nusra while plotting attacks against the West, intelligence officials say.
But Nusra has trained a core of elite fighters, the ISW says. Georgetown terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman says Nusra has achieved Osama bin Laden’s goal of rebranding al Qaeda and moving away from a name that had lost its luster.
The group’s leader, Abu Mohammad al Julani, is hardly a household name in the West, but he is respected by his adversaries in American intelligence. He is believed to have been detained by the U.S. military in Iraq and released in 2008.
Hoffman, who served as the CIA’s Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism, calls Nusra “even more dangerous and capable than ISIS.”
Al Qaeda is watching ISIS “take all the heat and absorb all the blows while al Qaeda quietly re-builds its military strength,” he said.