Category Archives: Department of Defense

Pathetic, Kerry is Begging Russia

Posted on by

As Syria Talks Fizzle, ‘War Has No Meaning Anymore’

NYT: GENEVA — Four Syrian rebel commanders huddled in a knot, all broad shoulders and shiny gray suits, surveying the hotel lounge. Gigantic portraits of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix gazed down at the carpet, a checkerboard of faux zebra-hide in squares of orange and magenta. On a low sofa, a couple snuggled to the sounds of Amy Winehouse. The fighters decamped to a smokers’ enclosure behind a plate-glass window, its back wall a trompe-l’oeil image of electric-blue waves that made it seem as though they were submerged in a fish tank. It was an effect that fit their mood. They were in Geneva, notionally at least, for peace talks, but back in Syria, the government and its Russian allies were battering insurgents with scores of airstrikes. With their men under fire, the commanders were asking themselves how much longer they could credibly stay.

“Maybe a day,” one, Maj. Hassan Ibrahim, said on Monday night.

By Wednesday, the talks were indeed suspended, as the intense fighting on the ground proved there was as little to talk about as ever.

In an interview earlier, under the watchful eye of an adviser from Saudi Arabia, Major Ibrahim had dutifully projected strength and determination. But when the Saudi man walked away, the Syrian, who had defected from the government army in 2011, leaned forward and confided that the fighters he led in southern Syria were struggling. Supplies of weapons and salaries from the United States and its allies are dwindling. Moving in and out of Jordan is getting harder.

“They are doing it to put pressure on us to accept a political process,” he said, one in which he doubted that the Syrian government — or Russia, a sponsor of the talks — would make any compromise.

Major Ibrahim was reflecting a growing foreboding among the opposition’s fighters and civilians, mirrored by growing hope on the government side, that Washington, interested only in bombing the Islamic State militant group, is ceding the field to Russia and leaving the opposition on its own.

So much in Geneva this week was exactly like the last round of Syria peace talks in the city two years ago. Soft-lit hotel lobbies sweltered in the heat of glass fireplaces. Room service offered staple Syrian food — “Oriental mezze” — for about $40, which in Syria might constitute two weeks’ decent wages. Government and opposition delegates still seemed to be coming from different planets and witnessing different wars. Continue here.

Russia ignores Kerry plea to stop Syria bombing, deploys advanced fighter jets

FNC: Russia seemingly has ignored Secretary of State John Kerry’s appeals to stop bombing civilians and allow critical humanitarian aid to starving Syrians – and is instead escalating its military involvement, deploying four of its most capable fighter jets to Syria, two defense officials confirmed to Fox News.

The decision to send the Su-35S jets poses yet another hurdle for Kerry’s efforts to proceed with peace talks. The Su-35S is Russia’s most advanced warplane, capable of air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, one official familiar with the jet said.

Already, continued Russian airstrikes against Syrian opposition fighters, some backed by the CIA, were enough to derail proposed peace talks in Geneva Wednesday.

Despite backing two U.N. resolutions in support of a ceasefire, Russia reneged on its promise to stop bombing civilians in Syria, a prerequisite for the U.N.-backed talks in Geneva.

“[T]here will be a ceasefire,” Kerry predicted Tuesday in Rome. “We expect a ceasefire. And we expect adherence to the ceasefire. And we expect full humanitarian access.”

Two days later, the Russian bombing hasn’t stopped and thousands of Syrians remain starving.

Kerry said he was assured by his Russian counterpart the Russians would stop bombing.

“I talked to Foreign Minister Lavrov a couple of days ago and I specifically discussed a ceasefire with him, and he said they are prepared to have a ceasefire,” Kerry said.

But Kerry’s counterpart responded the next day saying the strikes would continue.

“Russian strikes will not cease [in Syria] … I don’t see why these airstrikes should be stopped,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday in Oman. Hours later, the U.N. talks fell apart.

Kerry continued calling on Russia to stop bombing Thursday in London.

“It could not be more clear. That is an obligation that is not tied to talks. It is an obligation accepted by all parties in the United Nations resolution. Russia voted for that, Russia has a responsibility, as do all parties, to live up to it,” he said.

The Russians have carried out 270 airstrikes since Monday, according to its defense ministry.

On Wednesday, a United Nations special envoy suspended the peace talks, which include participation from Russia and Iran, just hours after they began.

“It is not the end and it is not a failure of the talks,” said U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Staffan di Mistura.

The State Department denied the peace conference was a waste of time.

“It’s not a charade because they were there and because there was a beginning,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.

The top U.S. general in Iraq said the U.S. wants to avoid a confrontation with Russia, despite Russia bombing U.S.-backed rebels.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as a proxy war. I would say that we are pursuing different goals,” Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland told reporters, speaking from Baghdad earlier this week.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Syrians are starving inside the country, besieged by Russian airstrikes preventing humanitarian aid from reaching them.

The U.N. chief humanitarian coordinator says close to 500,000 Syrians are cut off from food assistance surrounded by Bashar Assad’s forces. Fifty-one people have died of hunger in Madaya, a town of 20,000, located an hour outside Damascus and just 10 miles from Lebanon and 40 miles from the Israeli border.

Aid workers who arrived with the first and only food convoy last month said they have never seen such devastation.

“We saw people who are clearly malnourished, especially children, we saw people who are extremely thin, skeletons, that are now barely moving,” said Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Syria to Reuters.

There are currently no plans for the U.S. military to help the U.N. get food to the hundreds of thousands trapped in Syria.

“There are no plans for that at this time,” said Col. Steve Warren, a U.S. military spokesman for the coalition based in Baghdad. “We’ll, of course, support them if asked and able, but our focus is the defeat of ISIL.”

“We haven’t seen a catastrophe like this since World War II,” said Kerry in Rome. “[I]n recent months its people have been reduced to eating grass,” he added.

A Washington Post editorial blamed Secretary Kerry’s compromise with Russia in the pursuit of peace talks, in part, for the prolonged starvation crisis: “Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s handling of the Syrian crisis appears to be enabling those very war crimes.”

In a statement late Wednesday, the State Department said the peace talks in Geneva were “paused” and would resume later this month.

Epic Chinese Hacking is Forecasted

Posted on by

 

In 2015: Washington (CNN) A highly trained group of Chinese hackers is targeting defense, commercial and political organizations worldwide, pulling off sophisticated heists of sensitive information, according to new research out Wednesday.

Though Chinese cyberespionage has been well-documented, researchers from Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit — a division of Dell tech company — say this group, nicknamed Emissary Panda by another research firm, has pulled off cyberattacks at a level of sophistication and specialization rarely seen before among Chinese hackers. More here.

Security Firm Warns of
New Chinese Cyber Attacks

CrowdStrike: Russia, North Korea also engaged in cyber theft

FreeBeacon: China’s cyber attacks against U.S. government and private sector databases are part of a major intelligence-gathering operation and are likely to continue, according to a new report by a cyber security firm.

Chinese hackers stole health care data pertaining to some 80 million Americans last year, and the Office of Personnel Management cyber attacks netted sensitive records on 22 million federal workers, according to an annual threat report made public Wednesday by CrowdStrike, a cyber security and intelligence company. The company is widely consulted by both government and private sector organizations.

The gathering of personal data by the Chinese represents a new trend in Beijing’s aggressive cyber attacks.

“This targeting underscores that intrusion operations associated with nation-states pose a significant risk to all data, no matter how uninteresting it may seem,” the report said.

The 49-page “2015 Global Threat Report” also states that the U.S.-China agreement not to conduct commercial cyber theft has had little impact on Beijing’s cyber operations.

“Beneath the surface, however, China has not appeared to change its intentions where cyber is concerned,” the report said.

Any reduction in Chinese cyber attacks this year likely will be temporary, and an apparent reduction may result from the use of more clandestine methods for conducting attacks following a major military reorganization.

The military changes “will likely increase [China’s] reliance on its civilian intelligence agencies and associated contractors, all of which generally employ better tradecraft,” the report said.

“If observed campaigns in late 2015 were any indication, it is unlikely China will completely cease its cyber operations, and 2016 will show the new direction it is headed,” the report said.

More cyber attacks seeking personal data could take place in the future, and organizations that hold such data “should remain alert to the possibility of similar activity going into 2016,” the report said.

China’s cyber spies usually use cyber intrusions to steal strategic information, such as intellectual property, business operations data, and sensitive government documents.

Stolen personal data, on the other hand, “is typically used to facilitate identity theft or other types of financially motivated crimes,” the report said.

However, the compromised personal information from health insurance companies Anthem, Premera, and CareFirst last year could be used by the government or state-run companies.

The large data theft also appears to be part of Chinese efforts to “build out profiles on individuals to support future operations.”

The federal government data breaches were more damaging and included sensitive background investigation information on federal employees, the report said.

“Without doubt, access to this degree of [personally identifiable information] for both successful and unsuccessful applicants represents a treasure trove of information that may be exploited for counterintelligence purposes,” the report said.

The Chinese can now exploit millions of stolen records for intelligence operations.

“Knowledge acquired during these operations could be used to create more individualized, and therefore more effective, spear phishing campaigns, or also in more traditional, real-world espionage activity,” the report said, noting that the background investigation data “would be particularly useful to traditional [human intelligence] operations as it contains details of a very personal nature about current and former government employees, as well as private sector employees working on government contracts.”

The Chinese government, through the Ministry of Public Security, has launched a major domestic campaign to crack down on online dissent. The Ministry is conducting cyber operations against people and websites that post information opposed by communist authorities, including use of an offensive cyber security force called the “Great Cannon,” a supplement to the Great Firewall designed to block online users from accessing unapproved content.

In Russia, hackers linked to the government used malicious software for intelligence-gathering and for political coercion, such as against Ukraine. Moscow hackers also have conducted cyber reconnaissance—preparation of the cyber battlefield—in Europe and elsewhere.

“In February, widespread spear phishing … was detected and analyzed,” the report said. “These attacks targeted numerous entities in government, defense, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America.”

Russian hackers used stolen emails from a hack against the U.S. strategic consulting firm Stratfor, the report said, a tactic not typical of Russian hacking in the past.

International pressure on Moscow over its military activities, such as the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea “portend increased intelligence collection by Russia-based adversaries particularly against regional targets and global energy companies,” the report said.

A Russian cyber intelligence operation, dubbed Berserk Bear, targeted oil and gas companies in the Middle East. Another operation, called Fancy Bear, targeted Chinese defense firms.

One Russian hacker group called CyberBerkut operating in Ukraine appears linked to Russian intelligence services.

North Korean cyber activities last year principally involved intelligence-gathering operations directed against South Korea.

Pressure from China could prompt Pyongyang to take a more aggressive cyber posture. And North Korean cyber activities also could expand into criminal activities to raise money for the regime, the report said.

Iran is expected to step up cyber attacks against Saudi Arabia. Regional tensions “increase the likelihood that Iran would use its proven cyber capabilities in 2016, targeting Saudi Arabia and regional governments that are becoming involved in the two countries’ dispute by choosing to align with Saudi Arabia.”

The report names more than 70 cyber adversaries and divides them into three types of attackers: Target intruders, such as nation states, cyber criminals, and “hacktivists.”

For cyber crime, attacks on banks and the use of ransom schemes increased during 2015.

“Phishing emails continued to dominate crimeware distribution throughout the year as the primary mechanism used for the aforementioned banking Trojans and ransomware threats,” the report said.

So-called hacktivist activities including politically motivated cyber attacks by groups like the Syrian Electronic Army and pro-ISIS hackers.

Several pro-Iranian hacker groups also were active last year, including Parastoo, Remember EMAD, and SOBH Cyber Jihad.

The group Remember EMAD—named after the Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyah who was killed in a Damascus car bomb in 2009—claimed to have penetrated Pentagon networks and then threatened to release stolen data. No data was ever released.

ISIS hacking was very active last year and included campaigns of web defacement, the release of personal data—known as “doxing”—and the hijacking of social media accounts.

Russia’s Beachhead Syria, Serbia and Baltics?

Posted on by

New Russian beachhead in Syria

WashingtonTimes: U.S. intelligence agencies are closely watching what appears to be a buildup of Russian military forces in northeastern Syria, very close to the Turkish border.

The buildup has been underway for the past several weeks, and defense officials say there are concerns Moscow is creating a new military air base and outpost similar to the current base near Latakia, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

Defense officials said there are indications the Russians are planning to deploy their most advanced air defense weapons, the S-400, at Qamishli, located very close to the Turkish border. Russian-Turkish relations soured in November after Turkish forces shot down a Russian Su-24 jet that strayed into Turkish airspace.

The London Times reported last month that some 200 Russians were fortifying a runway at the Qamishli air base.

The report prompted the Russian Defense Ministry to deny Moscow planned to deploy air forces at the base.

“There are no ‘new’ air bases or additional pre-strike staging ports for Russian warplanes in the territory of [the] Syrian Arab Republic, and there are no plans to create them,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told the Interfax news agency.

The Russian activity at Qamishli has set off alarms in Turkey, a NATO ally, with fears the Russians are preparing to conduct threatening operations against Turkey in retaliation for the downing of the Su-24, which led to the death of one of the two crew members and a member of the Russian team sent to rescue the downed crew.

Russia denied the jet violated Turkish airspace and said it would retaliate against the Turks for the incident.

Turkey then announced Jan. 30 that another Russian jet violated Turkish airspace, prompting another denial from Moscow.

An Israeli think tank, The Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, this week published photos of the Russian military buildup at Latakia. The photos reveal deployments of over 30 warplanes, including 11 of the supersonic Su-24 bombers. Additionally, the photos show 10 Su-25s and seven advanced Su-35s.

Defense officials say the Russian airstrikes in Syria are aimed primarily at anti-regime rebels with only limited strikes against the Islamic State terrorist group.

The S-400 batteries also are visible in the photos along with Pantsir SA-22 missiles.

***

Serbia and Russia

Moscow confirms: Serbia wants Russian missiles and warplanes

Serbia is interested in buying Russian air defense systems Tor, Pantsir, and Buk, as well as MiG-29 warplanes, Sputnik is reporting.

Belgrade showed interest in this after Croatia announced it planned to buy American weapons, a representative of the Russian Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation said.

“We are considering the issue of delivering air defense systems and MiG-29s to Serbia. That country is our strategic partner in Europe in many spheres, including military-technical cooperation,” the source said.

It was stated on January 15 that in the wake of Croatia’s announced plans to buy MGM-140 ATACMS missiles, Serbia became interested in Russian air defense systems and jets.

If Russia Started a War in the Baltics, NATO Would Lose — Quickly

FP: If Russian tanks and troops rolled into the Baltics tomorrow, outgunned and outnumbered NATO forces would be overrun in under three days. That’s the sobering conclusion of war games carried out by a think tank with American military officers and civilian officials.

“The games’ findings are unambiguous: As currently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members,” said a report by the RAND Corp., which led the war gaming research.

In numerous tabletop war games played over several months between 2014-2015, Russian forces were knocking on the doors of the Estonian capital of Tallinn or the Latvian capital of Riga within 36 to 60 hours. U.S. and Baltic troops — and American airpower — proved unable to halt the advance of mechanized Russian units and suffered heavy casualties, the report said.

The study argues that NATO has been caught napping by a resurgent and unpredictable Russia, which has begun to boost defense spending after having seized the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine and intervened in support of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine. In the event of a potential Russian incursion in the Baltics, the United States and its allies lack sufficient troop numbers, or tanks and armored vehicles, to slow the advance of Russian armor, said the report by RAND’s David Shlapak and Michael Johnson.

“Such a rapid defeat would leave NATO with a limited number of options, all bad,” it said.

The United States and its NATO allies could try to mount a bloody counter-attack that could trigger a dramatic escalation by Russia, as Moscow would possibly see the allied action as a direct strategic threat to its homeland.  A second option would be to take a page out of the old Cold War playbook, and threaten massive retaliation, including the use of nuclear weapons. A third option would be to concede at least a temporary defeat, rendering NATO toothless, and embark on a new Cold War with Moscow, the report said.

However, the war games also illustrated there are preemptive steps the United States and its European allies could take to avoid a catastrophic defeat and shore up NATO’s eastern defenses, while making clear to Moscow that there would no easy victory.

A force of about seven brigades in the area, including three heavy armored brigades, and backed up by airpower and artillery, would be enough “to prevent the rapid overrun of the Baltic states,” it said. The additional forces would cost an estimated $2.7 billion a year to maintain.

The report was released Tuesday, the same day Defense Secretary Ash Carter unveiled plans to add more heavy weapons and armored vehicles to prepositioned stocks in Eastern Europe to give the Pentagon two brigade sets worth of heavy equipment on NATO’s eastern frontier.  As it stands now, there are two U.S. Army infantry brigades stationed in Europe — one in Italy and the other in Germany — but they have been stretched thin by the constant demands of training rotations with allies across the continent. The new $3.4 billion plan outlined by Carter and the White House would add another brigade to the mix, but it would be made up of soldiers from the United States, rotating in for months at a time.

Late last month, Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of U.S. European Command, released a new strategy anticipating — and pushing back against — the call for more rotational forces. Flying troops in and out of the region “complements” the units who call Europe home, he wrote, but they’re no “substitute for an enduring forward deployed presence that is tangible and real. Virtual presence means actual absence.”

David Ochmanek from the RAND Corp., a former senior Pentagon official who has studied the challenge posed by Russia’s military, called the administration’s budget proposal for European forces an important step and an “encouraging sign.”

“Heavy armored equipment, pre-positioned forward, is the sine qua non of a viable deterrent and defense posture on the alliance’s eastern flank,” Ochmanek told Foreign Policy. But he said much more needed to be done to strengthen NATO’s defenses.

The findings from the war games will be warmly welcomed by senior officers in the U.S. Army, who have struggled to justify the cost of maintaining a large ground force amid budget pressures in recent years and a preference for lighter footprints. And the report will reinforce warnings from top military leaders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, that Russia may represent the number one threat to U.S. interests.

In early 2012, the Obama administration announced the withdrawal of two heavy brigades and their equipment from Germany, cutting deeply into the U.S. Army’s traditional, large footprint on the continent. Since then, the service has been slowly trying to move some hardware back into Germany for use in training exercises with NATO partners. Last year, U.S. Marines also began to roll a small number of Abrams tanks into Romania for a series of exercises with local forces.

Since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine sparked alarm in Eastern Europe, the United States has repeatedly vowed to defend Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the event of an attack, citing its mutual defense obligations under the NATO alliance. In a September 2014 speech in Tallinn, President Barack Obama made an explicit promise to protect the Baltic countries.

“We’ll be here for Estonia.  We will be here for Latvia.  We will be here for Lithuania.  You lost your independence once before. With NATO, you will never lose it again,” Obama said.

But the RAND report said “neither the United States nor its NATO allies are currently prepared to back up the president’s forceful words.”

The borders that the three Baltic countries — all former Soviet republics — share with Russia and Belarus are about the same length as the one that separated West Germany from the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. But in that era, NATO stationed a massive ground force along the frontier with more than 20 divisions bristling with tanks and artillery.

Tanks are few and far between now in NATO countries, the report said. Germany’s arsenal of about 2,200 main battle tanks in the Cold War has declined to roughly 250. Britain, meanwhile, is planning on pulling out its last brigade headquarters left on the continent.

With only light infantry units at the ready in the Baltics, U.S. and NATO planners are also worried about the continued Russian arms buildup in the exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast between Poland and Lithuania, and Moscow’s intention to build a new air force base in Belarus, just south of the Polish-Lithuanian border.

The war games run by RAND underscored how U.S. and NATO forces lack the vehicles and firepower to take on their Russian adversaries, which have maintained more mechanized and tank units. NATO ground troops also lacked anti-aircraft artillery to fend off Russian warplanes in the Baltic scenario.

“By and large, NATO’s infantry found themselves unable even to retreat successfully and were destroyed in place,” the report said.

In the war games, although U.S. and allied aircraft could inflict damage on the invading Russian forces, they also were forced to devote attention to suppressing Russia’s dense air defenses and defending against Russian air attacks on rear areas.

Although it was unclear if deploying more troops and armor would be enough to discourage Russia from gambling on an attack in the Baltics, NATO’s current weak position clearly did not pose a persuasive deterrent, the report said.

By undertaking “due diligence” and bolstering NATO’s defenses, the alliance would send “a message to Moscow of serious commitment and one of reassurance to all NATO members and to all U.S. allies and partners worldwide,” it said.

 

 

Libya, to Be or Not to Be, Mercenaries

Posted on by

ISIS Recruits Poor Africans as Fighters for Libya with Cash Bonus

The Islamic State is offering people from Chad, Sudan and Mali up to $1,000 cash bonus to join its army in Libya.

The Islamic State is recruiting from three African countries, offering prospective soldiers up to a $1,000 signing bonus to swell its army in Libya, according to Libyan intelligence.

The Islamic State’s chapter in former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte is recruiting from Chad, Sudan and Mali, countries where typical wages can be as little as a dollar a day and where the sums offered by ISIS are very enticing.

Similar mercenaries from impoverished African countries were used by Gaddafi for his armies.

ISIS has controlled Sirte for a year and is believed to have raised an army of 2,000 to 3,000 fighters. Of these, 70 percent are believed to be non-Libyans.

“The majority – I cannot tell you exactly how many – are Tunisians, while the rest are made up mostly of Sudanese, Egyptians and then people from the Sub-Saharan countries stretching from Chad and Nigeria, along with a few from Algeria and the Gulf,” the head of military intelligence in Misrata, Colonel Ismail Shukri, told The Telegraph.

“Sadly, we have big open borders and long open areas, and through the routes for illegal immigration, we now have all this ideology coming through. That is one of the reasons why Isil has come to Libya.”

The Islamic State is also recruiting from the growing unemployed population in Tunisia, the International Business Times reported in January.

Gen. Dunford wants ‘decisive military action’ against ISIS in Libya

Washington (CNN)President Barack Obama’s top military adviser has begun to talk openly about stepped-up U.S. military action against ISIS in Libya as the terror group expands its operations in the North African country.

The U.S. wants to “take decisive military action” to “check” ISIS in Libya, while still supporting the political process to form a functioning government, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters while traveling in Europe.

U.S. military reconnaissance flights over Libya and covert intelligence-gathering missions are now focusing sharply on tracking and locating ISIS’s growing presence in that country, according to a senior defense official.

Dunford hopes to develop recommendations in the next several weeks that would offer options for U.S. military action in conjunction with allies such as France, Italy and Britain, the official said.

At the same time, Dunford is working on recommendations for additional U.S. and coalition troops to help the Iraqis retake the city of Mosul in the coming weeks and months.

READ: United Nations warns of ISIS expansion in Libya

CNN was not present for the session with reporters, but Dunford’s spokesman confirmed the details of his remarks.

The chairman did not specify any U.S. military options. But other defense officials have made clear that they would involve targeting ISIS forces inside Libya, as well as possibly training Libyan forces outside the country to go back in and fight the group.

Concern has grown in recent weeks as the latest intelligence assessments show the number of ISIS operatives inside Libya could now number in the low thousands. The U.S. also believes some senior ISIS leaders have gone there.

ISIS fighters are going to Libya when they cannot get into Syria and Iraq, but some are also leaving those areas in the face of ongoing airstrikes and fighting against them in place like Raqqa, ISIS’ self-declared capital in Syria. The U.S. also is concerned that ISIS will make a move against Libyan oil installations in order to restore cash flow it has lost in U.S. bombings.

READ: Hillary Clinton’s other Libya problem

In November, the first U.S. airstrike against ISIS in Libya killed Abu Nabil, a senior operative. Now, however, the U.S. is privately pressing allies to also take more action against ISIS in Libya.

By getting better intelligence on where ISIS is located in Libya and acting against the group, the U.S. hopes to put a “firewall” around its presence inside the country so it cannot expand further into Africa or move toward southern Europe, the defense official said.

Dunford’s remarks came as another top U.S. military leader weighed in on ISIS in Libya.

“There is concern about Libya,” said Gen. Joe Votel, head of U.S. Special Operations Command. “It can’t all be about Iraq and Syria.”

Votel has been nominated to take over Central Command, which is running the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq and Syria.

UK awaits outcome of Libya talks as it weighs military options

Downing Street waiting to see whether peace efforts succeed before joining US and France in calling for intervention

A British decision on whether to join western powers considering direct military intervention against Islamic State in Libya is likely to rest on whether long-running efforts to form a viable Libyan national unity government will materialise in the coming weeks.

The Pentagon and the French government have been pressing for direct action following a meeting in Paris last week, and Italy has said it would consider involvement. Downing Street said on Monday that no decisions had been taken regarding British troops and fended off questions about whether they would be deployed in a combat or training role.

The Ministry of Defence has not confirmed reports it is willing to send as many as 1,000 troops to the country, which has fallen into chaos following the violent overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and allied air strikes in 2011.

Agreement on a Libyan national unity government was reached in December but so far has been rejected by rival Libyan parliaments, including the one recognised by the international community, in a dispute about ministries.

David Cameron will be reluctant to seek cross-party support in the Commons for further UK military action so soon after investing much political capital in winning support for airstrikes in Syria.

Rendition for Edward Snowden?

Posted on by

Edward Snowden did perform a duty and that was to expose the NSA programs and the associated intrusions. However, stealing documents and sharing them with roque nations and adversarial countries is best described as high crimes and misdemeanors. Would planning a rendition operation be altogether misguided?

Secret US flight flew over Scottish airspace ‘to capture Snowden’

TheNational: THE UK GOVERNMENT is facing demands to reveal the details of a secret flight through Scottish airspace which was at the centre of a plot to capture whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The plane, which passed above the Outer Hebrides, the Highlands and Aberdeenshire, was dispatched from the American east coast on June 24 2013, the day after Snowden left Hong Kong for Moscow. The craft was used in controversial US ‘rendition’ missions.

Reports by Scottish journalist Duncan Campbell claim the flight, travelling well above the standard aviation height at 45,000 feet and without a filed flight plan, was part of a mission to capture Snowden following his release of documents revealing mass surveillance by US and UK secret services.

That the flight passed over Scotland, airspace regulated by the UK, has raised questions over UK complicity in a covert mission to arrest Snowden and whether any police, aviation or political authorities in Scotland were made aware of the flight path.

Alex Salmond, the SNP foreign affairs spokesman and Scotland’s First Minister when the flight took place, has called for full transparency from the UK Government over the case.

He said: “As a matter of course and courtesy, any country, particularly an ally, should be open about the purposes of a flight and the use of foreign airspace or indeed airports.”

“What we need to know now is, was this information given to the UK Government at the time. If so, then why did they give permission? If not, then why not? As a minimum requirement, the UK authorities should not allow any activity in breach of international law in either its airspace or its airports.

“That is what an independent Scotland should insist on. Of course, since no rendition actually took place in this instance, it is a moot point as to whether intention can constitute a breach of human rights. However, we are entitled to ask what the UK Government knew and when did they know it.”

The flight took place after US federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Snowden on June 14. Regular meetings with the FBI and CIA, convened by US Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco, then planned Snowden’s arrest for alleged breaches of the Espionage Act, according to The Washington Post.

New documents, revealed by Danish media group Denfri, confirm that the N977GA plane was held at a Copenhagen airport for “state purposes of a non-commercial nature”. Two days later Danish authorities received an “urgent notification” from the US Department of Justice to cooperate in arresting Snowden.

N977GA was previously identified by Dave Willis in Air Force Monthly as an aircraft used for CIA rendition flights of US prisoners. This included the extradition of cleric Abu Hamza from the UK. Snowden accused the Danish Government of conspiring in his arrest. In response to flight reports, he said: “Remember when the Prime Minister Rasmussen said Denmark shouldn’t respect asylum law in my case? Turns out he had a secret.”

Snowden was behind the largest leak of classified information in history, revealing spying activities that were later deemed illegal on both sides of the Atlantic. He was elected rector at the University of Glasgow in February 2014, yet is unable to fully carry out his duties.

Patrick Harvie, co-convener of the Scottish Green Party, echoed calls for an inquiry into the flight: “It will certainly raise suspicions that an aircraft previously identified as involved in rendition flew through UK airspace at that time. We have a right to know what UK and Scottish authorities knew about this flight given it is implicated in the US response to whistleblowing about global surveillance.”

ATTEMPTS to arrest Snowden have failed as Russian authorities refused to comply. However, pressure from US authorities made it dangerous for Snowden to travel from Russia to Latin America, where Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela have all offered him asylum.

The presidential plane of Bolivian leader Evo Morales was forced to ground in Vienna, after four EU nations refused airspace access on the mistaken belief that Snowden was hidden on board.

In 2013 Police Scotland launched an investigation into whether other US rendition flights – where prisoners were taken to blacklist torture sites – used Scottish airports or airspace.

In 2006 aviation expert Chris Yates said it was likely that a US rendition flight had passed through Scottish airspace to Syria, in a case where the prisoner, Maher Arar, said he was tortured.

In 2008 then foreign secretary David Miliband admitted that UK airports had been used for US rendition flights and apologised for previous government denials.

American politics lecturer John MacDonald, director of foreign policy group the Scottish Global Forum, said: “Given the constitutional arrangements, there are a number of areas in which the Scottish Government may well have interests or concerns but will be excluded because security arrangements with the US are deemed ‘out of bounds’ for Scotland.

“However, if you take serious the supposition that all responsible governments have a moral and legal obligation to raise questions about flights which may be involved in dubious security and intelligence activities, then the Scottish Government may well have an interest in – or even be obliged to –raise questions.

“Questions have already been raised about the nature of military and intelligence air traffic through Scotland and if this activity is raising concerns within Scottish civil society – and it seems to be – then it is surely incumbent upon the Scottish Government to raise the issue with London.”

National Air Traffic Control Systems (Nats), who control flight access to UK airspace, said rendition flights are an issue for the UK Government. In response to questions, the UK Government refused to provide details on attempts to arrest Snowden or on the passage of the N977GA flight.

The Scottish Government also avoided a direct statement on the case on legal grounds. A spokesman said: “There is already an ongoing Police Scotland investigation, directed by the Lord Advocate. This investigation will seek to gather all available evidence of rendition flights using Scottish airports. As this is a live investigation it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

During his two and a half years in Moscow, Snowden has caused diplomatic ruptures and a worldwide debate on privacy and state security. In October 2015 the European Parliament voted narrowly, in a non-binding motion, to drop charges against him in recognition of “his status as [a] whistle-blower and international human rights defender”.