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Assad-loving academic Tim Anderson uses his human rights lectures to spruik his book and hand out pamphlets urging students to attend a conference on Syria which includes a seminar on the war from Hezbollah’s perspective.
The Sydney University academic, who has repeatedly visited Syria as a guest of Bashar al-Assad’s government, used his food security lecture yesterday to take aim at the media as part of a conspiracy involving three US administrations.
He also handed students information on the conference which promoted a talk by his colleague Jay Tharappel, who met with a senior Assad cabinet minister in 2015.
One of Australia’s most prestigious universities has become the centre of a movement that believes Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has been framed by the West for last week’s chemical weapons attack.
The University of Sydney is standing by a controversial senior lecturer, Tim Anderson, who has dismissed the sarin gas attack in the Idlib Province as a “hoax” and called Syria’s six-year civil war a “fiction” perpetrated by the US “to destroy an independent nation”.
Fairfax Media can reveal Dr Anderson is just one among a number of Australian academics who have formed a pro-Assad outfit called the Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies, based in Sydney, to counter “censorship” by their universities.
The centre was formed “after concern that many Western academic bodies constrain, censor and marginalise counter-hegemonic or anti-imperial research and discussion, due to their close ties with government and corporate sponsors”.
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meets with Australian professor Tim Anderson and a delegation including academics, researchers and activists in Damascus in 2013. Photo: HOPD
As well as Dr Anderson, its editorial board consists of Luis Angosto-Ferrandez, another Sydney University senior lecturer, Drew Cottle from Western Sydney University, Rodrigo Acuna at Macquarie University and a number of other academics, including two from East Timor.
Next week the Centre will hold a two-day conference at the University of Sydney, including a discussion of the Syrian conflict “from Hezbollah’s perspective”. The event is endorsed by the University of Sydney Union-funded Political Economy Society.
An enthusiastic supporter of the Syrian state and lifetime radical, Dr Anderson was convicted in 1990 over the 1978 Hilton Hotel bombing in Sydney, but acquitted the following year. He has travelled to Syria several times to meet with Assad.
After his most recent pro-Assad tweets were reported by the ABC’s Media Watch and News Corp’s Daily Telegraph, Dr Anderson and his supporters labelled the reports “fake news” and launched extraordinary personal attacks on a journalist involved.
Sydney University senior lecturer Tim Anderson (centre) believes Bashar al-Assad has been framed. Photo: Facebook
Jay Tharappel, who tutors human rights in the same Sydney University department as Dr Anderson, called News Corp journalist Kylar Loussikian “traitorous scum who desperately wants a second Armenian genocide”. Loussikian is of Armenian background.
Mr Tharappel defended the remarks when contacted by Fairfax Media on Tuesday. “If people like him wage war on our post-colonial homeland then I will wage war against them,” he said. “They can choose to fight me and I will fight them … with words.”
The University of Sydney said it was aware the CCHS was due to host next week’s conference on campus, and noted it did not provide financial or administrative support to the centre.
Dr Anderson told Fairfax Media the CCHS had “zero budget” and its mission was to create a “virtual library” of literature in support of sovereignty and self-determination.
Jay Tharappel, a protege of Tim Anderson at the University of Sydney, with a picture of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Photo: Facebook
A spokeswoman said the university did not endorse Dr Anderson’s statements but was committed to free speech for academic staff in their area of expertise.
“This means tolerance of a wide range of views, even when the views expressed are unpopular or controversial,” she said. In a statement, the student-run Political Economy Society also said it would continue to endorse the event “at this time”.
Dr Anderson has stated on Twitter that US presidents George Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump are the real “masterminds of Middle East terrorism”. He stood by those comments on Tuesday. “Absolutely. The evidence is overwhelming,” he said.
Dr Anderson has also written a book, The Dirty War on Syria, published by the Montreal-based Centre for Research on Globalisation. The centre has been dismissed by PolitiFact and the Associated Press as a website that promotes conspiracy theories.
Mr Trump last week authorised the US firing 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Syrian airfield from which he said the deadly chemical attack was launched. The Assad regime has denied responsibility, while ally Russia said the Syrian army hit rebel-owned chemicals on the ground.
Asked about the matter while in India on Tuesday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he had not been briefed on Dr Anderson’s activities, but reiterated his support for the US air strikes and condemned the Assad regime’s “horrendous criminal conduct”.
So many complain the FBI is slow-walking cyber and hacking operations especially when it comes to the Russian investigations. Well, the FBI rarely announces cases and prosecutions. When it comes to the recent Russian hacking scandal into the United States election and campaign infrastructure, perhaps the Department of Justice and the FBI are building a huge file for proof.
U.S. sweeping up Russian hackers in a broad global dragnet
BY TIM JOHNSON/WASHINGTON
McClatchy: The arrests caught the Russian hackers totally by surprise. One was at a Finnish border crossing. Another was arriving at an airport in Spain. A third was dining at a restaurant in Prague. Still others were at luxury resorts in the Maldives and Thailand.
Many have now turned up in U.S. courts. The long arm of U.S. law enforcement is spanning the globe like never before to bring criminal hackers to justice.
And it may not be just about crime. The Justice Department cites fuzzy and overlapping boundaries between criminal hackers and Russian intelligence agencies, the same ones the U.S. accuses of coordinating the hacking and subsequent disclosure of emails from the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.
President Donald Trump dismisses allegations that Russia meddled in the election as “fake news,” but the FBI and congressional committees have launched probes and the Obama administration ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats in late December.
During a Senate committee hearing on Thursday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio stated that his 2016 presidential campaign staff members were the targets of Russian hackers in July 2016 and March 2017, but both efforts were unsuccessful.
The U.S. campaign leaves Russian hackers with a dilemma: If they leave the safe confines of Russia, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, or Russia’s most ardent allies, they may get picked up and sent to the U.S.
“They no longer travel, the high-profile hackers. They understand the danger,” said Arkady Bukh, a criminal defense lawyer in New York City who has defended numerous accused Russian cybercriminals.
Still, some Russian and Eastern European hackers do enjoy holidays abroad – and live to regret it. Just this week, Maxim Senakh, a 41-year-old Russian, pleaded guilty in a Minneapolis courtroom to operating a massive robotic network that generated tens of millions of spam emails a day in a zombie criminal enterprise that purportedly brought in millions in profits.
Senakh didn’t come voluntarily. He’d been visiting a sister in Finland before that country put him on a U.S.-bound plane in January, answering a U.S. extradition request.
“He fought it, the Russian government fought it, and the Russian government put political pressure on its neighbor, Finland,” federal prosecutor Kevin S. Ueland said at a Feb. 19 hearing.
Another Russian, Mark Vartanyan, 29, pleaded guilty March 20 to computer fraud in an Atlanta courtroom after reaching a deal with prosecutors to offer far-reaching cooperation that would limit a prison term to five years or less.
David Hickton, a former U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh who made the city a hub for prosecutions of foreign hackers, said such actions are a sign of the new dimensions of crime.
IT’S NO DIFFERENT THAN IF SOMEONE PULLED A TRUCK UP TO YOUR HOUSE AND STOLE VALUABLE MATERIAL. David Hickton, former federal prosecutor
“This is 21st century burglary. It’s no different than if someone pulled a truck up to your house and stole valuable material,” said Hickton, who now directs the Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security at the University of Pittsburgh.
But Hickton acknowledged that carrying off successful prosecutions is a challenge.
“These cyber investigations are very, very hard. You’re talking about evaporating evidence, borderless crimes and defendants who can hide behind the borders of countries that don’t have extradition treaties with us,” he said.
It is not easy to pigeonhole the accused and convicted hackers. Some are brainy but merely cogs in larger crime groups. Others flash their wealth and opulent lifestyles.
NOT ALL OF THEM ARE RICH.
Arkady Bukh, criminal defense attorney in New York City
“Not all of them are rich,” Bukh said. “A lot of them are involved in computer intrusion and that does not bring much money.”
Bukh recalled one client, Aleksandr Panin, who was placed by authorities on a plane in the Dominican Republic to 2013 bound for Atlanta, put on trial and convicted.
“The guy couldn’t afford a car even with (having caused) a billion dollars in losses. He’s like a mad scientist geek,” Bukh said.
Then there are those on the opposite extreme, who pose for photos with piles of cash or at luxury beach resorts. One of them, Roman Seleznev, was convicted last year in Seattle on 38 counts related to cybercrime. His father is a deputy in the Russian parliament, or Duma. Prosecutors retrieved a photo from his cell phone of him standing next to a yellow Dodge Challenger muscle car in Red Square near the Kremlin.
The magnitude of damages that prosecutors have alleged can be mind-boggling.
Vartanyan, the young Russian hacker brought to Atlanta from Norway, was part of the development team that created Citadel, a “universal spyware system” sold on underground Russian criminal hacker forums that ended up lodged on 11 million infected computers around the world.
In their complaint against him, prosecutors cited industry estimates that Citadel caused “over $500 million in losses” in a three-year period.
The investigations can be incredibly complex, leading federal investigators to call in specialized cybersecurity firms to conduct forensics. In the probe of Senakh, whose guilty plea came last month, the feds turned to ESET, a cybersecurity firm with 18 offices around the world.
ESET analyzed the malicious code Senakh used, dubbed Ebury malware, and found that it had compromised 25,000 servers around the world, researcher Marc-Etienne Leveille said in an email.
Stanislav Lisov, a computer programmer from Taganrog, a town on Russia’s Black Sea coast, had arrived at Barcelona’s international airport with his wife on Jan. 13 when Spanish Civil Guard police arrested him on an FBI warrant issued through Interpol. The charges: electronic and computer fraud.
WE WERE DETAINED AT THE AIRPORT IN BARCELONA.
Darya Lisova, wife of accused Russian hacker Stanislav Lisov
“We were detained at the airport in Barcelona, when we came to return a rented car before flying out to Lyon, to continue our trip and visit friends. When we were getting out of the car, two police officers approached, showed us the badge, and said they were detaining my husband,” Darya Lisova told the Russian state-operated RT network.
Spain has not yet extradited Lisov, who is blamed for being the architect of a sophisticated Trojan, NeverQuest, used in stealing log-in credentials for bank accounts.
Here is a rundown of some other recent cases:
Yevgeniy Nikulin, 29, was arrested by police while dining with his girlfriend in a hotel restaurant in Prague’s Old Town Oct. 5. He has been indicted by a federal grand jury in northern California on charges of computer intrusion, identity theft and other crimes for penetrating into the systems of high-tech companies LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring. Since then, Washington and Moscow have been in a tug-of-war over Nikulin’s extradition.
Olga Komova, a 26-year-old Uzbek, and Dmitry Ukrainsky, a Russian, were arrested in mid-2016 at beach resorts in Thailand and accused of stealing more than $28 million as part of a mega cyber bank fraud ring. Komova has turned up in U.S. custody and faces federal charges of wire fraud and money laundering. How she was brought to the United States is unclear. Her U.S. lawyer, Michael Soroka, declined to discuss the case.
When extradition isn’t an option, U.S. authorities lure alleged hackers to jurisdictions where they can be arrested. Such tactics have been decried by Moscow as “kidnapping.”
Seleznev, the identity thief who is the son of the Duma deputy, chose to vacation at a five-star resort in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of the Maldives in 2014 precisely because it has no extradition treaty with the United States.
U.S. officials got word and persuaded Maldives authorities to intercept Seleznev at the airport, where in a fast-paced operation he was bundled on a private plane to Guam, a U.S. territory in the western Pacific, then flown to Seattle to face federal charges.
Upon his conviction last August, prosecutors said Seleznev had stolen millions of credit card numbers, causing 3,700 banks $169 million in losses. He faces a 40-year jail term.
No matter where the hackers travel, prosecutors say they will follow.
The U.S. attorney in Atlanta, John Horn, who has also made a name for himself in prosecuting Russian hackers, offered an unapologetic defense last year of the global reach of U.S. justice.
“Cybercrime is borderless, but increasingly, so too are our law enforcement capabilities,” Horn said.
According to that CW disarmament specialist, ОБАС-250-235П is one and only Sov/Rus aviation bomb to spread Sarin. That looks like filler cappic.twitter.com/1sSpNdHt0m and Associated Press is reporting:
Senior U.S. official says U.S. has concluded that Russia knew in advance of Syria’s chemical weapons attack last week – AP
So….
Who lied? Susan Rice? Yes, John Kerry? Yes, Barack Obama….especially yes. While John Kerry worked with Russia to eliminate the ‘declared’ chemical weapons in Syria…note below it refers to mustard gas. When Russia presented the document to the Obama administration, we signed it as well. So, the Assad regime, Putin, Iran and the Obama White House all have their feet in this swamp. Got that?
Also note the percentage of the CW inventory destroyed…hummm right?
DefenseOne
Release No: NR-052-14
January 27, 2014
M/V Cape Ray Deployment
Today the Department of Defense announced the deployment of M/V Cape Ray from Portsmouth, Va. M/V Cape Ray is the primary contribution of the Department of Defense toward international efforts to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons material program. Over the last several months, hundreds of government and contract personnel have worked tirelessly to prepare the vessel to neutralize Syrian chemical materials and precursors using proven hydrolysis technology. This achievement could not have been possible without these remarkable contributions.
The United States remains committed to ensuring its neutralization of Syria’s chemical materials prioritizes the safety of people, protects the environment, follows verification procedures of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and with applicable standards. All waste from the hydrolysis process on M/V Cape Ray will be safely and properly disposed of at commercial facilities to be determined by the OPCW. No hydrolysis byproducts will be released into the sea or air. M/V Cape Ray will comply with all applicable international laws, regulations, and treaties.
It is the responsibility of the Assad regime to transport the chemical materials safely to facilitate their removal for destruction. The international community is poised to meet the milestones set forth by the OPCW, including the June 30 target date for the total destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons materials. The United States joins the OPCW and the United Nations in calling on the Assad regime to intensify its efforts to ensure its international obligations and commitment are met so these materials may be removed from Syria as quickly and safely as possible.
Arms Control
Transfer of Syrian Chemicals to Cape Ray is Complete
A trailer operator for Medcenter Container Terminal transfers a container from the M/V Ark Futura, a Danish cargo ship, along the dock to the loading deck of M/V Cape Ray during operations at the Italian port of Gioia Tauro, July 2, 2014. The Cape Ray is tasked with the neutralization of specific chemical materials from Syria in accordance with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons guidelines while operating in international waters. U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Desmond Parks
WASHINGTON, July 3, 2014 — The transfer of Syrian chemicals from the Danish container ship Ark Futura to the Motor Vessel Cape Ray has been completed, Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Adm. John Kirby said in a statement issued yesterday.
After the transfer was made in the Italian port of Gioia Tauro, Kirby said in the statement, the Cape Ray departed yesterday for international waters in the Mediterranean Sea to emp loy its onboard system to neutralize the chemicals.
Kirby’s statement reads as follows:
The transfer of Syrian chemicals from the Danish container ship Ark Futura to the Motor Vessel Cape Ray is complete. Cape Ray departed the Italian port of Gioia Tauro this afternoon for international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, where neutralization operations will soon begin. The neutralization process should take several weeks to complete.
Secretary Hagel is grateful to Danish and Italian authorities for their support in this process and is enormously proud of everyone who helped make possible this safe and incident-free transfer. He extends a special thanks to the men and women of the Cape Ray, Naval Forces Europe, and U.S. European Command teams for their impeccable planning and execution.
***
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13, 2014 – The container ship M/V Cape Ray has arrived at Rota, Spain, for a port visit while en route to aid in removal of Syrian chemical materials, Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said.
The vessel — part of the Transportation Department Maritime Administration’s Ready Reserve Force program — left Portsmouth, Va., Jan. 27. Hundreds of government and contract personnel worked for several months to prepare the vessel to neutralize Syrian chemical materials and precursors using hydrolysis technology.
“When Syria has completed removal of its chemical materials, MV Cape Ray will depart Rota and proceed to the transloading port in Italy, where she will take the chemicals on board,” Warren said in a statement announcing the vessel’s arrival in Spain. “Our ship is prepared and our crew is trained to safely neutralize Syria’s chemical materials. We stand ready to fulfill our contributions to this international effort; it is time for Syria to live up to their obligations to the international community.”
By offering Rota for a port of call before MV Cape Ray receives a load of chemical materials and embarks on the destruction phase of its mission, Spain is making a contribution to the United Nations-sanctioned multinational effort to rid Syria of its chemical weapons materials, officials at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid said.
The United States plans to neutralize the chemicals at sea in international waters using proven hydrolysis technology, embassy officials added. All waste from the hydrolysis process aboard MV Cape Ray will be safely and properly stored on board until it is disposed of at commercial facilities to be determined by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, they added, emphasizing that no hydrolysis byproducts will be released into the sea or air.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sent a message to the Cape Ray’s crew, wishing them well as they left Portsmouth.
“As you all know, your task will not be easy,” Hagel wrote. “Your days will be long and rigorous. But your hard work, preparation and dedication will make the difference.
“You are ready,” the secretary continued. “We all have complete confidence in each of you. You represent the best of our nation, not only because of your expertise and commitment, but because of your willingness to serve when called upon. For that, we will always be grateful. We are also grateful to your families for the love and support they have given you. On behalf of our country and the American people, I wish you much success. Take care of yourselves. God bless you all.”
***
WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2014 – Specialists on the U.S. container ship M/V Cape Ray continue their work in the Mediterranean Sea, neutralizing chemical materials from Syria and contributing to what the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW, on August 7 confirmed as the destruction of 74.2 percent of Syria’s chemical stockpile.
The Spanish patrol boat Infanta Elena (P-76), left, escorts the container ship MV Cape Ray (T-AKR 9679) through the Strait of Gibraltar en route to the Mediterranean Sea June 26, 2014. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Desmond Parks (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.
U.S. military and civilian specialists aboard the ship began using the field deployable hydrolysis system to neutralize Syrian chemical materials on July 7, Director of Pentagon Press Operations Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters at the time, anticipating that it would take about 60 days to complete the job.
On August 5 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground-Edgewood Team CBRNE capabilities showcase, Adam Baker, a chemical engineer and project manager with the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, detailed the hard work that went into turning a land-based hydrolysis system into a field-deployable system in just five months.
“We had a gap in capabilities for a system that was transportable, that could be operated out of a remote location and that would [process] bulk liquid agent at high throughputs.”
The system had to be able to be transported to a remote site and set up and be sufficient with a supply of reagents and diesel fuel, Baker explained.
The project was given the go-ahead in February 2013. In November 2013, he said, “That’s when they made the decision to start putting it on the Cape Ray.”
The timeline was short, Baker said, and they couldn’t start from scratch with a new system, so they used a process from the former Aberdeen Chemical Demilitarization Facility, or ABCDF, that had been used a decade ago to neutralize 1,700 tons of mustard – part of the destruction of the United States’ own chemical stockpile.
Baker said the engineers compressed that process into transportable, standardized shipping containers. They had two titanium reactors they could use for the Cape Ray that made it easier for rapid deployment of the two systems that are now on the ship.
One of the Cape Ray’s most critical design factors for the system, Baker said, “was that everything we needed had to go on that ship. Instead of having trucks come in every day and bring the reagent and trucks go out every day with your waste, all of those containers had to go on the ship.”
At least 269 of the standardized shipping containers are on the ship, holding everything the specialists and crew need and everything the hydrolysis process needs and then creates. Nothing is dumped from the ship. More here.
The European Commission has launched an “Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa”, made up of €1.8 billion from the EU budget and European Development Fund, combined with contributions from EU Member States and other donors. The Trust Fund will benefit a wide range of countries across Africa that encompass the major African migration routes to Europe. These countries are among the most fragile and those most affected by migration. They will draw the greatest benefit from EU financial assistance. The countries and regions are:
The Sahel region and Lake Chad area: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, the Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.
The Horn of Africa: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
The North of Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
Neighbouring countries of the eligible countries may benefit, on a case by case basis, from Trust Fund projects with a regional dimension in order to address regional migration flo ws and related cross- border challenges. Read the full document here.
EU Economic and Military Investments in Africa Increase
Africa faces a number of security challenges, from terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and al Shabaab, to civil wars and violent conflicts in South Sudan and Libya, to severe droughts causing hunger crises in Somalia and Yemen.
This instability contributes to migration from Africa to Europe. In addition, a demographic boom is taking hold in Africa, stoking concerns about future mass migration. “Today, Africa is twice the population of Europe. In 2050, it will be four times the population of Europe, and it is projected at the end of this century to be 10 times the population of Europe. … There is a sense in many political circles in Europe that what’s happening today is just the beginning of a much bigger movement that could reach Europe tomorrow,” Philippe Fargues, founding Director of the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute in Italy, told The Cipher Brief.
The European Union is intervening. On the migration front, the EU is engaged in Partnership Framework Agreements with several African countries to stem the flow of migrants. “This was followed up with the setting up of the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (a €2 billion aid program aimed at securing African countries’ cooperation in tackling irregular migration), leading to the initial signing of bilateral agreements with Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal and Ethiopia” says the Abuja, Nigeria-based Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development, Idayat Hassan.
Niger, for example, is receiving €610 million to keep migrants from reaching Europe, Hassan says, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pledged €17 million to Niger to help develop the Agadez region, a major route for West African migrants.
Germany seems to be leading European action in Africa. Last year, German Development Minister Gerd Müller unveiled a “Marshall Plan” for the continent. “Germany and Europe have an interest to save people’s lives, to limit the effects of climate change and avoid ‘climate refugees,’ to prevent mass migration and to help create a future for Africa’s youth,” said Müller.
Asmita Parshotam, a researcher under the Economic Diplomacy Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs, tells The Cipher Brief that this plan is intended to “cover a broad range of issues such as trade, increased private investment, bottom-up economic development, entrepreneurship, and job creation and employment.”
In addition to Germany’s unilateral aid to Africa, the EU recently announced its EU External Investment Plan that will help expand Africa’s private sector, with €3.35 billion in funding until 2020 and €88 billion if EU member states fully match that contribution.
The European Development Fund and African Investment Facility also provide economic development assistance from the EU to Africa.
In the development-security aid realm lies the EU Sahel Strategy, launched in April 2015. “The enhancement of security in the region through the fight against terrorism, illicit trafficking, radicalisation and violent extremism, remains the key objective of the EU,” according to a memo on the EU Sahel Strategy from the Council of the European Union.
EU member states also host a number of military bases in Africa. France, Germany, Italy, and Spain all have boots on the ground in Djibouti. France’s presence there is now around 1,700 personnel.
About 3,500 French troops operate in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, and Gabon is a key base that France has used to send troops to interventions in the Central African Republic. France last year boosted its military presence in Cote d’Ivoire to about 900 men to serve as a forward operating base for West Africa.
The French, along with the Germans, are also in Niger. Germany has an air transport base at the Niamey international airport that supports its increasing troop contribution to the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali, a country that underwent a rebellion and coup in 2012 and a serious deterioration in the security environment in January 2013 when terrorist groups – Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, in addition to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – advanced south.
A majority of UN peacekeeping missions, in which many Europeans are involved, are in Africa.
The question remains, will the EU’s economic and military investment in Africa work in stabilizing a continent plagued by terror, war, drought and famine, extreme poverty, and inadequate governance?
Müller’s “Marshall Plan” acknowledges that African governments must take responsibility for fighting corruption, ensuring good governance, and improving opportunities for women.
The EU has made much of its development aid contingent on African governments’ cooperation in addressing the EU’s security concerns. For example, on migration, Parshotam notes that an EU-Mali deal will give Mali aid in exchange for Mali taking back all citizens whose asylum claims were rejected.
But with African countries that have no stable government to work with, it becomes harder for the EU to invest in and create stability. “Libya is a failing state – there’s no central authority,” Leonard Doyle, Spokesperson of the Director General at the International Organization for Migration, told The Cipher Brief. “So the Europeans have not been able to reach a coherent agreement with Libya [on migration]. Although there is a lot of pressure now, especially militarily, to stop the smugglers, and economically as well, to help Libya get back on its feet,” he said.
“I think we are completely wrong in our policies,” said Fargues. “The amount of money contributed to African development is too small, but also in the short term and medium term, development will not curb migration,” he said, because the African population continues to grow, while Europe’s continues to shrink. “We have to get prepared for migration.”
If you still think the chemical weapons attack was fake news, read on. Further, it must be stated that the Pentagon and CIA have extraordinary skills and ability to gather quality intelligence, intelligence that was gained under the Obama administration and did not stop the program but rather deferred it to Russia to handle. This was done under threat by Tehran to the Obama White House to leave Assad alone during the JPOA, the Iran nuclear talks. Obama complied.
For Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and for U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley to lay the blame at the feet of Russia and Iran for the Assad/Syria chemical weapons program was exact and right.
Bassem Al-Hassan, the head of the Syrian clandestine unit for special assignments, was appointed the position after Muhammad Suleiman, another key aide to Assad, was assassinated in his home in August 2008, Western intelligence sources told Fox News.
Hassan is also considered a very close friend and contact to Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard general, and has connections with Russian officials.
Western intelligence sources said Hassan was the head of Unit 450, Syria’s chemical weapons unit, and was responsible for any activities, including producing and ordering the weapons for the department.
Syria agreed in 2013 to destroy its stockpiles of chemical weapons as part of a deal brokered between former President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin. A year later, then-Secretary of State John Kerry said that Syria’s chemical weapons were “100 percent” destroyed.
The statement came into question on Tuesday when a chemical weapons attack in an opposition-held town in northern Syria killed more than 80 people, including at least 30 children. The U.S. blamed Assad for the attack.
President Trump on Friday authorized to launch 60 U.S. Tomahawk missiles on the Shayrat air base, southeast of Homs, in retaliation to the chemical weapons attack. The Pentagon said the airstrikes will not eliminate the country’s chemical weapons supply completely, but reduce the government’s ability to deliver them.
Elite Syrian Unit 450 Scatters Chemical Arms Stockpile
2013: A secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons program has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track, according to American and Middle Eastern officials.
The movements of chemical weapons by Syria’s elite Unit 450 could complicate any U.S. bombing campaign in Syria over its alleged chemical attacks, officials said. It also raises questions about implementation of a Russian proposal that calls for the regime to surrender control of its stockpile, they said.
U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies still believe they know where most of the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons are located, but with less confidence than six months ago, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. alleges a chemical-weapons attack by the Syrian government on Aug. 21 killed more than 1,400 people, including at least 400 children. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday again denied any involvement in a chemical attack, but he said his government was prepared to sign an agreement banning the use of chemical weapons. Syrian officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the weapons.
Unit 450 – a branch of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center that manages the regime’s overall chemicals weapons program – has been moving the stocks around for months, officials and lawmakers briefed on the intelligence said.
The unit is in charge of mixing and deploying chemical munitions, and it provides security at chemical sites, according to U.S. and European intelligence agencies. It is composed of officers from Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect. One diplomat briefed on the unit said it was Alawite from “janitor to commander.”
U.S. military officials have looked into the possibility of gaining influence over members of Unit 450 through inducements or threats. “In a perfect world, you would actually like to co-opt that unit. Who cares who pays them as long as they sit on the chemical weapons,” said a senior U.S. military official.
Although the option remains on the table, government experts say the unit is so close-knit that they doubt any member could break ranks without being exposed and killed.
The U.S. estimates the regime has 1,000 metric tons of chemical and biological agents. “That is what we know about. There might be more,” said one senior U.S. official.
The regime traditionally kept most of its chemical and biological weapons at a few large sites in western Syria, U.S. officials said. But beginning about a year ago, the Syrians started dispersing the arsenal to nearly two dozen major sites.
Unit 450 also started using dozens of smaller sites. The U.S. now believes Mr. Assad’s chemical arsenal has been scattered to as many as 50 locations in the west, north and south, as well as new sites in the east, officials said.
The U.S. is using satellites to track vehicles employed by Unit 450 to disperse the chemical-weapons stocks. But the imagery doesn’t always show what is being put on the trucks. “We know a lot less than we did six months ago about where the chemical weapons are,” one official said.
The movements, activities and base locations of Unit 450 are so sensitive that the U.S. won’t share information with even trusted allies in the opposition for fear the unit would be overrun by rebels, said current and former U.S. officials.
The U.S. wants any military strikes in Syria to send a message to the heads of Unit 450 that there is a steep price for following orders to use chemical weapons, U.S. officials said.
At the same time, the U.S. doesn’t want any strike to destabilize the unit so much that it loses control of its chemical weapons, giving rebels a chance to seize the arsenal.
“Attacking Unit 450, assuming we have any idea where they actually are, would be a pretty tricky affair because”¦if you attack them you may reduce the security of their weapons, which is something we certainly don’t want,” said Jeffrey White, a veteran of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a defense fellow at The Washington Institute.
Within Syria, little is known about Unit 450 or the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center. One of the buildings is in a sprawling complex on the outskirts of Damascus.
Even high-ranking defectors from the Syrian military that form the core of the rebel insurgency – including those who served in units trained to handle chemical attacks – said they hadn’t heard of Unit 450.
The Pentagon has prepared multiple target lists for possible strikes, some of which include commanders of Unit 450.
But a senior U.S. official said no decision has been made to target them, reflecting the challenge of sending a message to Unit 450 without destabilizing it.
In some respects, officials said, the hands-on role that Unit 450 plays in safeguarding the regime’s chemical weapons secrets makes it too valuable for the U.S. to eliminate, even though the U.S. believes the unit is directly responsible for the alleged chemical weapons abuses.
The Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center answers only to Mr. Assad and the most senior members of his clan, according to U.S. and European officials. Attack orders are forwarded to a commanding officer within Unit 450.
If the Russians clinch a deal for Mr. Assad to give up his chemical weapons, any prospective United Nations-led force to protect inspectors and secure storage sites would likely need to work closely with Unit 450 and the research center, current and former administration officials said.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that President Barack Obama directed him to plan for “a militarily significant strike” that would deter the Assad regime’s further use of chemical weapons and degrade the regime’s military capability to employ chemical weapons in the future.
But officials said the U.S. doesn’t plan to bomb chemical weapons sites directly because of concerns any attack would disperse poison agents and put civilians at risk.
In addition to satellites, the U.S. also relies on Israeli spies for on-the-ground intelligence about the unit, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.
Though small in size, Unit 450 controls a vast infrastructure that makes it easier for the U.S. and Israel to track its movements. Chemical weapons storage depots are guarded by the unit within larger compounds to provide multiple layers of security, U.S. officials said.
Whenever chemical munitions are deployed in the field, Unit 450 has to pre-deploy heavy equipment to chemical mixing areas, which the U.S. and Israel can track.
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meets with Australian professor Tim Anderson and a delegation including academics, researchers and activists in Damascus in 2013. Photo: HOPD
Sydney University senior lecturer Tim Anderson (centre) believes Bashar al-Assad has been framed. Photo: Facebook
