Defeat of ISIS in Iraq Remains Elusive

Posted on July 15, 2015July 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

From the Department of Defense:

Coalition Airstrikes Destroy Vehicle Bomb Factory in Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, July 15, 2015 – U.S. and coalition military forces have continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

“In the past 48 hours, coalition airstrikes hit five vehicle-borne [improvised explosive devices] and a factory producing these weapons in Ramadi,” said Army Lt. Col. Thomas Gilleran, task force spokesman. “Removing these weapons from the battlefield is a high priority for the coalition.”

Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Airstrikes in Syria

Attack, bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 16 airstrikes in Syria:

— Near Hasakah, six airstrikes struck an ISIL large tactical unit and five ISIL tactical units destroying two ISIL fighting positions, an ISIL bunker, an ISIL tunnel entrance, an ISIL vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, an ISIL anti-aircraft artillery weapon, an ISIL artillery piece and two ISIL checkpoints.

— Near Aleppo, six airstrikes struck 27 ISIL staging areas.

— Near Raqqah, an airstrike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

— Near Dayr Az Zawr, an airstrike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

— Near Kobani, an airstrike struck an ISIL tactical unit.

— Near Tal Abyad, an airstrike struck an ISIL large tactical unit and destroyed three ISIL fighting positions.

ISW: ‘ISIS will benefit’ from the Iran nuclear deal

The United States and other world powers struck a landmark deal with Iran over its nuclear program this week, and the agreement might benefit one group that the US hadn’t counted on — the Islamic State.

Hassan Hassan, an associate fellow at the think tank Chatham House and co-author of the recent book “ISIS: Inside The Army of Terror,” told The Wall Street Journal that the nuclear deal could make already-disaffected Sunnis feel even more like the US and Iran are conspiring against them.

“ISIS will benefit a lot from this deal; segments of the Sunni community in the region will see Iran as having won and brought in from the dark,” Hassan said.

The Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh), a Sunni terror group, already capitalizes on Sunni grievances for recruitment and support. ISIS presents itself as the sole protector of Sunni populations in Iraq and Syria, where Shiite-aligned regimes dominate.

And conspiracy theories about US collusion with Iran, a Shiite theocracy, add fuel to the flames as Iran expands its influence across the Middle East.

“ISIS has already convinced a number of Sunni tribes that the Iranians are already establishing the Shia crescent” and Sunni interests won’t be protected, Christopher Harmer, a senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told Business Insider last month.

(The Institute for the Study of War)

Allowing Iran to maintain its nuclear program, albeit a curtailed and controlled version of it, isn’t likely to make Sunnis rest easy. While the deal is designed to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, some are skeptical about whether Iran will hold up its end of the bargain.

There’s also concern about the sanctions relief that comes with the deal — Iran is already pouring billions of dollars into proxy conflicts in Iraq and Syria, and the extra money that will come with an easing of western sanctions might be used to ramp up Iran’s participation in these conflicts.

President Barack Obama has assured skeptics that the money from sanctions relief will be spent on growing the Iranian economy, but Eli Lake reported last month that Iran is spending much more to support the embattled regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad than the Obama administration has ever acknowledged.

(REUTERS/Stringer (IRAN)) Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad meets Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran February 18, 2007.

Iran also puts significant resources into fighting ISIS in Iraq. The Shia militias Iran supports and, in some cases, controls have become one of the most effective ground forces against the Sunni extremists.

Even though the militias are fairly effective at driving ISIS terrorists out of cities, the militia fighters themselves have been accused of burning down Sunni villages and committing atrocities against civilians, which only serves to widen the gulf between Sunnis and Shiites.

And even in some cases where there isn’t outright violence against Sunni civilians, militia members have reportedly refused to let many Sunnis back into their homes after ISIS has left their cities.

This is all what ISIS wants. The group thrives on sectarian chaos and hopes to drive Shias to commit atrocities so that Sunnis who might have previously turned against ISIS will be forced to live with the extremists, lest they make enemies of both ISIS and the militias.

“Much of Iran’s funding in Syria has gone toward arming predominantly Shia proxies—notably the so-called National Defense Force, an IRGC-QF-built super-militia—which fight Sunnis on behalf of Assad,” Michael Weiss and Nancy Youssef wrote for The Daily Beast. “An outgrowth of the sectarianism inherent in the Iranian and Syrian regime’s counterinsurgency has been ISIS, which draws thousands of Sunnis seeking to shield themselves from what they view as Shia jihadists.”

For a full summary of White House policy to date, click here.

Syria, the Modern Day Holocaust the World Ignores

Posted on July 15, 2015July 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

The first week of July, Iran signed an agreement with Syria. What did Tehran already know before the JPOA was announced on July 14th? Apparently enough and with confidence. Bashir al Assad was so delighted with the Iran JPOA agreement, he was the first to call Tehran with congratulations.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad has signed an agreement with Iran for lines of credit amounting to US$1 billion. The agreement is between the commercial bank of Syria and the Iranian Export Development Bank. Syria signed a major agreement with Iran in 2013, and since then has signed agreements with countries such as Russia and Venezuela to limit the damage caused by economic sanctions imposed by western countries.

So what does this mean for Assad and Syria? It is important to look at the past to see the future. Sadly, the United Nations and the United States have overlooked the conditions on the ground in Syria. Here it is for you. Syria is a modern day holocaust for which several countries are guilty yet not one is working to stop the atrocities.

Documenting Death Inside Syria’s Secret Prisons

NPR

Images of dead bodies in Syrian prisons, taken by a Syrian government photographer, are displayed at the United Nations on March 10. The photographer, who goes by the pseudonym Caesar, took the pictures between 2011, when the Syrian uprising began, and 2013, when he fled the country. His photos will be on display at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.

A Syrian forensic photographer, who now uses the pseudonym Caesar, documented the death of thousands of detainees in Syria’s brutal prison system. He made more than 55,000 high-resolution images before he fled the country, fearing for his safety, in 2013.

He spoke publicly for the first time in July 2014, when he appeared before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, wearing a blue jacket with a hood to protect his identity.

Dozens of Caesar’s photographs will be displayed again in the halls of Congress on Wednesday.

The exhibition is sponsored by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in cooperation with the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The graphic images show beaten and bruised bodies, many are skeletal, most with signs of torture. Now, Syrian families are searching the photos online after Syrian opposition groups posted more than 6,000 images in March.

NPR spoke to a member of the group that posted the pictures, as well as a friend who identified a victim, and a lawyer working on a war crimes case. Here are their stories:

Amer fled Damascus two days after his friend, Kutabia, a 40-year-old father of two, was seized by government agents from a bookstore in Damascus. The two friends demonstrated together through 2011. They took even larger risks together, smuggling money and medicine into restive neighborhoods besieged by the Syrian government.

“They invaded on New Year’s Eve at 6 p.m. I was at a café nearby. And when I finished I said, ‘Let’s go and say hi [to Kutaiba].’ I knocked and there’s no one. No lights inside. And I continued home and that’s when I heard that my friend was taken to the detention center or the torture center.

This is where the story begins. Once your friend is detained by the government, you try to figure out where he is.

His parents started to ask. They usually go to people in the intelligence service and the guy will say, ‘I can’t tell you, you have to give me money.’

For two and a half years his parents are paying money. Sometimes they take a couple of thousand dollars and [they] get back and say, ‘He’s alive and well, and says hi to his sons.'”

In March 2015, Syrian opposition groups published 6,000 of Caesar’s photos online. For the first time, Syrian friends and families could search the gruesome photo gallery and identify the victims. Kutaiba’s picture was among the dead, killed within a month of his arrest.

Rep. Ed Royce (center), R-Calif., speaks during a July 2014 hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, with “Caesar,” a Syrian army defector who wore a blue, hooded jacket to protect his identity. Caesar smuggled out of Syria more than 55,000 photographs that document the torture and killings in Syrian prisons. Alex Wong/Getty Images hide caption

“It was him. His eyes were closed. He had stitches on his forehead like the ones you see in horror movies. And I was shocked. I was in the middle of work. I don’t know what sort of people can do this harm and torture to another person.

I saw his color, and was like, ‘Thank God he wasn’t starved to death.’ He didn’t have his ears taken off or his nose. So, I thought he made them furious enough to kill him right away rather than being tortured on a daily basis. It’s always better to know, is he alive or is he dead.”

Dr. Mohammed Ayash works with the Syrian Association for Missing and Detainees of Conscience, based in Istanbul. In March, the group published some of the Caesar photos online and has organized private showings in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan and even in some rebel-held neighborhoods near Damascus. Dr. Ayash is scanning all the images and documenting the dead. It is a grim task made harder still because Dr. Ayash has seen friends and neighbors among the dead.

“We have about 6,700 victims in this website. I am a doctor, I’m not a pathologist, but I describe what I see in every picture. We have children in these pictures. There are older men. There is one woman.

It comes to my dreams sometimes, because of the horrible methods. By torture, by starvation and eye gouging, and it’s very hard for me.

(The work) is very important because we need the families as witnesses in any court. We need families to say, ‘Yes, this is my father and my brother,’ and they were taken and killed by the Assad regime.”

Muna Jundi, an attorney in Flint, Mich., works with United for a Free Syria, a coalition of Syrian-American nonprofit organizations. She was part of a team of Syrians who got Caesar to testify to Congress last year and will be in Washington for the event on Wednesday. She took part in the decision to publish the photos online.

“It was systematic, the regime was using it as a way to quell the revolution.

There’s a lot of missing Syrian people and a lot of people don’t know the fate of their family members. They hear about it through rumors. They pay money to try and find information and really there’s nothing concrete. And unfortunately there’s nothing more concrete than pictures of dead bodies. So the idea was to open up to help people identify their own family members.

For an American audience, I think it was shocking. But the sheer … mass production of this, I think, is what overwhelms. They’ve documented it in such detail.

Syrians inside Syria that had any experience with intelligence [services] automatically knew why the documentation had to happen.

When there’s an order from above, they need evidence that those orders are being carried out. In a highly corrupt government, where you can pay people to release people, they need the evidence. They needed to keep the evidence to show that you told us this is what we need to do, and therefore, this is what we are doing.”

Iran Deal, Deviled Details and $300 Billion

Posted on July 13, 2015July 13, 2015 by Denise Simon

Both sides are saying the others are throwing sand in the gears to publishing a final document of the Joint Plan of Action with Iran and the P5+1.

In part from FarsNews: “We have reached a stage now that the other side should decide if it is seeking an agreement or pressure; we have said many times that agreement and pressure cannot come together and one of them should be chosen,” Zarif told reporters in Vienna.

He reiterated that if the other side shows political will and inclination for a balanced and good deal it will be achievable.

Zarif, however, said that unfortunately the other side is showing change in stances and raising excessive demands which make the conditions difficult, adding, “We are doing our best as Supreme Leader (of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei) and other Iranian officials have said many times we are looking for a good deal and we will continue the negotiations; we have never left the negotiations and we will not in future.”

The Geneva interim deal envisaged the removal of all the UN and unilateral US and EU sanctions against Iran under a final comprehensive deal.

Also, in a framework agreement approved by the six powers and Iran in April known as the Lausanne Statement, the seven nations agreed that a final deal would include removal of all sanctions as well as a UN Security Council resolution which would call all the five UNSC sanctions resolutions imposed against Iran’s nuclear activities as “null and void”.

The first two UNSC resolutions boycotted export of military, specially missile, hardware and software to Iran, a sanction that – along with all the other embargoes imposed against Iran under the five UNSC resolutions – would be automatically removed under the new UNSC resolution that, according to the Lausanne framework agreement, should be issued on the same day that the final deal is endorsed.

Hence, the debate over the removal of the UN Security Council arms embargoes against Iran means US defiance of both agreements.

From the WSJ: If no deal is reached by Monday night, the two sides must again agree to extend the terms of their November 2013 interim nuclear deal or risk seeing two years of high-stakes diplomacy unravel. That accord offered modest sanctions relief for Iran in exchange for Tehran freezing parts of its nuclear program.

Among the final issues to be resolved are disagreements about the timing and sequencing of sanctions relief for Iran and the continuation of a ban on sales of arms and ballistic-missile parts to Iran. Officials have also been toiling over the text of a new U.N. Security Council resolution that would keep some restrictions on Iran and outline steps the country would take to detail its past nuclear activities.

One European official said Sunday there was “no way” negotiations could continue beyond Monday.

“Everything can fail still, but we are really near the end,” said a German official late Sunday. “With the willingness of Tehran to take the final steps, it could now go quickly. We are ready to negotiate all night.”

The matter of lifting sanctions, suspending other over 15 years funds future terrorism by infusing Iran with $300 billion.

From Foreign Policy Magazine: Barack Obama’s administration and the other parties to the interim nuclear deal with Iran now seem to be saying they are willing to release to Iran between a third and a half a trillion dollars over the next 15 years in order for Iran not to give up the program, but to freeze it. In other words, we are not restoring Iran’s assets and income sources in exchange for permanently and irreversibly accepting international standards; we are just renting the country’s restraint, offering it access to hundreds of billions of dollars to make any future nuclear program development the problem of the next U.S. president — or the one after that.

The problem is compounded by the fact that Iran’s nuclear program is not viewed by its neighbors as the main threat the country poses. A systematic, 35-year campaign of regional meddling, destabilization, and extension of Iranian influence is seen as a much bigger issue. And restoring cash flows and assets to Iran, as well as giving the country greater international standing, clearly exacerbates that threat. It gives Tehran the wherewithal to continue to underwrite terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas, prop up dictators like Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and buy ever greater influence in places like Iraq and Yemen.

The consequences of Iran’s regional strategy were on display this week in Washington when Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi essentially read from Iranian talking points when addressing the conflict in Yemen. He took a stance against Saudi intervention to stop Iranian-backed Houthis, suggested Iran’s role in Yemen was overstated, and even went so far as to suggest Obama had told him that he was not supportive of the Saudis. The White House immediately denied the last accusation but can’t have been too happy with the rest of the statement that came from the leader of a country the United States had spent hundreds of billions to “liberate.”

Numbers Even Backdoor to Front-door entry into U.S.

Posted on July 12, 2015July 12, 2015 by Denise Simon

There are almost 20 different visa applications forms, each for unique circumstances to enter into the United States. Some are easier and more likely used than others for fast processing and requiring less background investigations.

The State Department outsources the processing of visas and in some visa classifications there are annual quotas that can be finessed by waivers and or exemptions. There are even legal cottage industry members that handle the complex legal process with enough money, they know how to skirt the process and hasten the approval process.

Now, that these people have front-door entry, who are they and what happens if they overstay the visa time limit? Short answer is not much.

In March of 2012, John Cohen, the Deputy Counter-terrorism Coordinator for DHS provided written testimony to the House Sub-committee on DHS which fully explains the convoluted process and lack of resources. In the same hearing, Peter T. Edge, Deputy Executive Associate Director of DHS Investigations for ICE offered his written testimony on the scope of fraud of the visa program. This was in response to Amine el-Khalifi, an individual who allegedly attempted to conduct a suicide attack at the U.S. Capitol, is not the first time terrorists have exploited the visa process. In fact, el-Khalifi follows a long line of terrorists, including several of the 9/11 hijackers, who overstayed their visa and went on to conduct terror attacks.

Of particular note, the Visa Security program of 2002 is the basis of law today and reads in part from 2012 statistics:

The Visa Security Program
The Homeland Security Act of 2002 directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to assist in the identification of visa applicants who seek to enter the United States for illegitimate purposes, including criminal offenses and terrorism-related activities. The visa adjudication process often presents the first opportunity to assess whether a potential nonimmigrant visitor or immigrant poses a threat to the United States. The Visa Security Program (VSP) is one of several ICE programs focused on minimizing global risks.
Through the Visa Security Program (VSP), ICE deploys trained special agents overseas to high-risk visa activity posts in order to identify potential terrorist and criminal threats before they reach the United States. ICE special agents conduct targeted, in-depth reviews of individual visa applications and applicants prior to issuance, and recommend to consular officers refusal or revocation of applications when warranted. DHS actions complement the consular officers’ initial screenings, applicant interviews, and reviews of applications and supporting documentation.
ICE now conducts visa security investigations at 19 high-risk visa adjudication posts in 15 countries. In FY 2012 to date, VSP has screened 452,352 visa applicants and, in collaboration with DOS colleagues, determined that 121,139 required further review. Following the review of these 121,139 applications, ICE identified derogatory information on more than 4,777 applicants.

In 2012: The Obama administration doesn’t consider deporting people whose only offense is overstaying a visa a priority. It has focused immigration enforcement efforts on people who have committed serious crimes or are considered a threat to public or national security.

A House Homeland Security subcommittee is conducting an oversight hearing Tuesday. The panel’s chairwoman, Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., said El Khalifi “follows a long line of terrorists, including several of the 9/11 hijackers, who overstayed their visa and went on to conduct terror attacks.” His tourist visa expired the same year he arrived from his native Morocco as a teenager in 1999.

Going back to 2006, it was stated: “Many immigrants who are in the United States illegally never jumped a fence, hiked through the desert or paid anyone to help them sneak into the country. According to a recent study, 45 percent of illegal immigrants came here on a legal visa, and then overstayed that visa.” For the audio interview and Pew Research summary report, click here.

In closing, the LA Times proves the process on visa overstays with a few key cases.

* Laura Lopez first came to the U.S. at 15. She had joined a group of students from Guatemala who were visiting Orange County.

She remembers her first trip to Disneyland, eating at Taco Bell and strolling through the streets of downtown Santa Ana, with its impressive red sandstone courthouse.

“I felt so much energy,” said Lopez, now 30. “I looked around and saw that courthouse, and it was like something that spoke about freedom. I just didn’t want to leave.”

Lopez returned to Santa Ana two years later on a tourist visa. This time, she never left.

*Billy Lee came to California from South Korea with his mother when he was 5. Their trip included exploring Hollywood and spending time with relatives. “They told my mother they had great jobs, great schools — that this was a wonderful, open place to live and that we should take a risk and copy them,” said Lee, now 31.

So they stayed.

“Homeland Security Department officials estimate that up to 40% of the roughly 11 million people in the U.S. illegally arrived this way. Jorge-Mario Cabrera, spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. “It happens all the time.”

Yet, he said, no system exists “to follow up on what these folks do once they’re in the States. There’s no process by which officials can track if someone stayed the proper amount of time or beyond that.” For more cases covered by the LA Times, click here.

In the Obama administration, nobody knows anything or for that matter really investigates or reports the numbers.

Nobody is sure how many people are in the U.S. on expired visas.

A long-standing problem in immigration enforcement — identifying foreigners who fail to go home when their visas expire — is emerging as a key question as senators and President Barack Obama chart an overhaul of immigration law. The Senate is discussing an overhaul that would require the government to track foreigners who overstay their visas. The problem is the U.S. currently doesn’t have a reliable system for doing this.

The Center for Immigration Studies is the best source for visa overstays, yet few listen.

The General Accountability Offices does offer some insight that is useful.

Lastly, the piece parts are offered here from a 2013 hearing.

Written testimony of ICE Homeland Security Investigations Executive Associate Director James Dinkins, CBP Office of Field Operations Acting Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Wagner, and NPPD Office of Biometric Identity Management Deputy Director Shonnie Lyon for a House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security hearing titled “Visa Security and Overstays: How Secure is America?”

In closing, the system is broken simply due to lack of will, enforcement and resources. Adjustments do need to be made especially when it comes to ‘visa waiver companies and countries, which should both be terminated.

General Dunford Said Russia is #1 Threat, Here is Why

Posted on July 9, 2015July 9, 2015 by Denise Simon

Anyone read the book ‘Disinformation’ by Ronald Rychlak and LtG. Ion Pacepa?

General Joseph Dunford is next in line to replace General Dempsey as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His assessment today about who represented the topic threat to America’s National Security shocked the lawmakers when his response was Russia.

Peeling back some layers, we will come to understand why the General’s alarming conclusions are exactly right. Russia is operating a stealth KGB operation and it has been effective.

Wikileaks Release Indicates Hacking Team Sold To FSB, Russia’s Secret Police

Hacking Team Galileo console

From Forbes:

Now that Wikileaks has released the emails included in the 415GB leaked by the hackers who breached Italian “lawful intercept” provider Hacking Team TISI NaN%, the world has easy access to a trove of information blowing open the inner workings of the private surveillance industry. Amongst the files seen by FORBES so far, emails detailing Hacking Team’s sales to Russia’s secret police, the FSB.

Previous analysis of the leaks had sold its Galileo Remote Control System (RCS) to KVANT, a Russian state-owned military technology company. This inspired questions from Dutch politician and European Member of Parliament Marietje Shaake about the potential breach of European Union sanctions about the sale of such goods to Russia, which has been put on blacklists for its operations in war-torn Ukraine. Selling to the FSB would likely concern onlookers more, given the agency’s widespread access to communications in Russia. Many more details here.

Going beyond the next layer

Cyber Caliphate Hackers Not Linked to Islamic State

State Department warns IS online threat ‘unmatched’

by: Bill Gertz, FreeBeacon

The hacker group Cyber Caliphate that was thought to be an online arm of the Islamic State has no ties to the terror group despite its cyber attacks in support of the ultra-violent al-Qaeda offshoot, according to a State Department security report.

“Although Cyber Caliphate declares to support ISIL, there are no indications—technical or otherwise—that the groups are tied,” the two-page report from the Overseas Security Advisory Council states. The Islamic State (IS) is also known by the acronyms ISIL or ISIS.

Instead, Russian hackers now appear to be linked to the Cyber Caliphate, a fact discovered by French government authorities after a cyber attack on TV5Monde television in France last April.

In addition to the announcing the lack of a connection between IS and the Cyber Caliphate, the State Department warned that the terrorist group nevertheless continues to have unprecedented online recruitment and propaganda capabilities.

“ISIL’s online presence for propaganda and recruitment purposes continues to be unmatched by other terrorist organizations,” the report said.

The Islamic State uses Internet sites and social media strategies to disseminate and control its Islamist message.

“ISIL’s use of Twitter has been deemed particularly effective; a Brookings study reported at least 46,000 Twitter accounts in use by ISIL supporters during the timeframe of September through December 2014,” the report said.

IS also deftly exploits modern technology and has mastered online propaganda in appealing to young and computer-savvy foreigners, including known hackers who support its ends.

“Although ISIL continues to demonstrate success in using online tools for propaganda, recruitment, and fundraising purposes, the suspected link of Russian hackers to the TV5Monde attack reinforces the assessment that ISIL still lacks the ability to carry out a technically sophisticated cyberattack,” the report concludes.

President Obama on Monday defended the administration strategy against ISIL—despite the group’s expansion from Iraq and Syria to other parts of the world.

Obama said ISIL is “particularly effective” in recruiting foreigners, including Americans, and is using online methods to spread its ideology.

The president said that to defeat ISIL and al Qaeda, “it is going to also require us to discredit their ideology.”

However, the president and his administration continue to play down the Islamist nature of the threat, preferring the non-religious term “violent extremism.”

“Ideologies are not defeated with guns. They’re defeated by better ideas, [a] more attractive and more compelling vision,” Obama said.

“So the United States will continue to do our part by working with partners to counter ISIL’s hateful propaganda, especially online.”

The State Department report, “Who Is Cyber Caliphate? Re-examining the Online ISIL Threat,” was produced by a unit of the Department’s Office of Diplomatic Security, which supports American businesses overseas. It describes Cyber Caliphate as a relatively unsophisticated group that has conducted cyber attacks against perceived enemies of the Islamic State.

“This included targeting various media outlets, issuing threats against U.S. military spouses, and the highly publicized hacking of U.S. Central Command’s Twitter account and YouTube channel,” the report said.

Most of the group’s technical activities involved website defacements and hacking of Twitter accounts. The cyber vandalism seems to have beeen intended to spread IS propaganda and to build notoriety for the group.

However, the TV5Monde cyber attack that disrupted live broadcasts, staff email accounts, and the station’s web page for some 20 hours demonstrated new capabilities, the report said.

“The methodology employed in the attack was atypical of previous Cyber Caliphate activity, and further investigation by French authorities and U.S. private cyber security companies instead pointed to nation-state actors,” the report said.

Among the information said to have been compromised during the TV5Monde attack were personal information about relatives of French soldiers fighting IS. France is among the coalition of nations engaged in military operations against IS.

According to the report, IP addresses traced to the TV5Monde attack were traced to the Russian hacker group known as APT28.

“The [APT28] hacking group was formerly observed targeting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, entities in Eastern Europe, security companies, and journalists,” the report said.

“APT28 is assessed to conduct operations to benefit the Russian government, and was not previously seen using hacktivists or terrorist organizations as cover.”

The origin of Cyber Caliphate and its members remains unclear. Initially, it was believed by security authorities that the group started by a British hacker, 20-year-old Junaid Hussain, who was linked to a hack against former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Hussain then was said to have moved from Britain to Syria where he sought to recruit hackers.

The Cyber Caliphate has not been officially endorsed by IS but it has gained from the free publicity its hacker attacks have generated.

The group’s attack on TV5Monde was described in the report as an anomaly for the hackers. Several theories are under consideration by experts regarding the nature of the group’s actions.

Some analysts believe the group was testing its cyber capabilities in preparation for expanded strikes on new targets.

Other analysts said the television station cyber attack was retaliation based on strained ties between Moscow and Paris.

Russia was angered by France’s recent decision to cancel a $1.3 billion deal for two Mistral-class helicopter carriers for the Russian Navy after Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.

According to the report, the cyber security firm iSight Partners has assessed the Cyber Caliphate as a “false front for anti-western Russian actors.”

Another theory is that Cyber Caliphate is part of a Russian disinformation operation used by Moscow’s hackers as cover for their cyber attacks. The report noted “Russia’s long history of disinformation campaigns.”