Category Archives: Military

Putin Exploiting Open Skies Treaty

Posted on by

In this fresh era of Putin’s aggression in Syria, Europe, Ukraine and the Baltics, it seems no one is willing to force a stop of Russia in any part of the globe. What is especially disturbing is the Open Skies Treaty and Putin has been exploiting this agreement, to what end, no one seems to explain his objectives.

The U.S. State Department has a twisted mission of diplomacy when it intersects with operational security and future threat risks having particular emphasis on Iran, North Korea and Russia.

The Treaty on Open Skies establishes a regime of unarmed aerial observation flights over the territories of its signatories. The Treaty is designed to enhance mutual understanding and confidence by giving all participants, regardless of size, a direct role in gathering information through aerial imaging on military forces and activities of concern to them. Open Skies is one of the most wide-ranging international arms control efforts to date to promote openness and transparency in military forces and activities.

Russia wants to fly over U.S. with advanced digital camera

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia will ask permission on Monday to start flying surveillance planes equipped with high-powered digital cameras amid warnings from U.S. intelligence and military officials that such overflights help Moscow collect intelligence on the United States.

Russia and the United States are signatories to the Open Skies Treaty, which allows unarmed observation flights over the entire territory of all 34 member nations to foster transparency about military activity and help monitor arms control and other agreements. Senior intelligence and military officials, however, worry that Russia is taking advantage of technological advances to violate the spirit of the treaty.

Russia will formally ask the Open Skies Consultative Commission, based in Vienna, to be allowed to fly an aircraft equipped with high-tech sensors over the United States, according to a senior congressional staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the staff member wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

The request will put the Obama administration in the position of having to decide whether to let Russia use the high-powered equipment on its surveillance planes at a time when Moscow, according to the latest State Department compliance report, is failing to meet all its obligations under the treaty. And it comes at one of the most tension-filled times in U.S.-Russia relations since the end of the Cold War, with the two countries at odds over Russian activity in Ukraine and Syria.

“The treaty has become a critical component of Russia’s intelligence collection capability directed at the United States,” Adm. Cecil D. Haney, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, wrote in a letter earlier this year to Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., chairman of a House subcommittee on strategic forces.

“In addition to overflying military installations, Russian Open Skies flights can overfly and collect on Department of Defense and national security or national critical infrastructure,” Haney said. “The vulnerability exposed by exploitation of this data and costs of mitigation are increasingly difficult to characterize.”

A State Department official said Sunday that treaty nations had not yet received notice of the Russian request, but that certification of the Russian plane with a “digital electro-optical sensor” could not occur until this summer because the treaty requires a 120-day advance notification. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

The official also said that the treaty, which was entered into force in 2002, establishes procedures for certifying digital sensors to confirm that they are compliant with treaty requirements. The official said all signatories to the treaty agree that “transition from film cameras to digital sensors is required for the long-term viability of the treaty.”

In December, Rose Gottemoeller, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, sought to temper concerns about Russian overflights, saying that what Moscow gains from the observation flights is “incremental” to what they collect through other means.

“One of the advantages of the Open Skies Treaty is that information – imagery – that is taken is shared openly among all the treaty parties,” she said at a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees in December. “So one of the advantages with the Open Skies Treaty is that we know exactly what the Russians are imaging, because they must share the imagery with us.”

Still, military and intelligence officials have expressed serious concern.

“The open skies construct was designed for a different era,” Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers when asked about the Russian overflights during a congressional hearing. “I’m very concerned about how it’s applied today.”

Robert Work, deputy secretary of defense, told Congress: “We think that they’re going beyond the original intent of the treaty and we continue to look at this very, very closely.”

Steve Rademaker, former assistant secretary of state for the bureau of arms control and the bureau of international security and nonproliferation, told Congress at a hearing on security cooperation in Europe in October that Russia complies with the Open Skies Treaty, but has “adopted a number of measures that are inconsistent with the spirt” of the accord.

The treaty, for instance, obligates each member to make all of its territory available for aerial observation, yet Russia has imposed restrictions on surveillance over Moscow and Chechnya and near Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he said. Russian restrictions also make it hard to conduct observation in the Kaliningrad enclave, said Rademaker, who believes Russia is “selectively implementing” the treaty “in a way that suits its interests.”

Obama Secret Talks, World is Normalized with DPRK

Posted on by

Upon Obama’s departure from  the Oval Office in January 2017, there will be no more rogue nations or enemies of America and the West.

Next up after Iran and Cuba is North Korea. (shhhh, but I predicted this)

TheHill: The White House had signaled to the Kim Jung Un regime that it is willing to cut a deal similar to that brokered with Iran to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

But North Korea has expedited its plans to develop a nuclear bomb, which it sees as a valuable bargaining chip in eventual peace negotiations.

A long-range rocket launched by North Korea earlier this month triggered additional international sanctions, including a law signed Thursday by President Obama imposing steeper penalties.

Un, who took power at the end of 2011, has demanded additional conditions for a treaty with South Korea, 63 years after the Korean War ended with an armistice.

Obama Administration Secretly Approached North Korea About Diplomatic Talks Days Before Its Latest Nuclear Test: WSJ

Days before North Korea’s Jan. 6 nuclear test, the Obama administration clandestinely agreed to talks that would have formally ended the Korean War, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.

As part of the offer, reported to have been made at a U.N. meeting, the U.S. dropped its longstanding prerequisite that North Korea first make efforts to reduce its nuclear arsenal, instead calling for the military dictatorship to make its nuclear weapons program part of the talks. But the test ended those discussions.

North Korea began 2016 on a belligerent footing, even considering the unpredictable pariah state’s history. In addition to the January nuclear test, North Korea launched a rocket earlier this month, resulting in swift pushback from Japan and South Korea, which closed a joint industrial park that provided North Korea with valuable hard currency.

The most recent offer to North Korea was one of several overtures extended by the Obama administration, insiders told the Journal, which happened at the same time the administration was working on an ultimately successful diplomatic outreach to Iran. North Korea first tested a nuclear weapon in 2006, and its nuclear capabilities were confirmed in 2009. North and South Korea have technically been at war ever since the “hot” phase of the Korean War ended in 1953, but the North’s recent nuclear developments have increased the urgency to ultimately resolve the dispute diplomatically.

In addition to its unsanctioned nuclear activity, the North Korean regime is also alleged to operate a system of concentration camps where political prisoners are worked and starved to death. The U.N. released a 2014 report that suggested the regime’s security chiefs and leader Kim Jong Un should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

*** Note there is nothing about Unit 121, North Korea’s hacking division. Known since at least 2007.

CNet: North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) is in charge of both traditional and cyber operations, and is known for sending agents abroad for training in cyberwarfare. The RGB reportedly oversees six bureaus that specialize in operations, reconnaissance, technology, and cyber matters — and two of which have been identified as the No. 91 Office and Unit 121. The two bureaus in question comprise of intelligence operations and are based in China.

The RGB also reportedly oversees state-run espionage businesses located in 30 to 40 countries, often hosted in unsuspecting places such as cafes. Members of this espionage network reportedly “send more than $100 million in cash per year to the regime and provide cover for spies,” the report says.

In addition, the country’s Worker’s Party oversees a faction of ethnic North Koreans living in Japan. Established in 1955, the group — dubbed the Chosen Soren — refuse to assimilate in to Japanese culture and live in the country in order to covertly raise funds via weapons trafficking, drug trafficking, and other black market activities. The group also gathers intelligence for the country and attempts to procure advanced technologies.

Despite aging infrastructure and power supply problems, North Korea reportedly was able to gain access to 33 of 80 South Korean military wireless communication networks in 2004, and an attack on the US State Department believed to be approved by North Korean officials coincided with US-North Korea talks over nuclear missile testing in the same time period. In addition, a month later, South Korea claimed that Unit 121 was responsible for hacking into South Korean and US defense department networks.

 

Pentagon Reveals SpecOps Locations in Syria to Russia

Posted on by

If Russia say we are in a new Cold War, should the West believe that? Ukraine, Poland, Baltics, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua.

Warsaw-Reuters: In an interview with Reuters, Duda hit back at comments by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who last week described East-West relations as descending “into a new Cold War” and said NATO was “hostile and closed” toward Russia.

“If Mr Medvedev talks about a Cold War, then looking at Russian actions, it is clear who is seeking a new Cold War,” Duda, allied to Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) said in an interview in his presidential palace in Warsaw.

“If someone is undertaking aggressive military activities in Ukraine and Syria, if someone is bolstering his military presence near his neighbors … then we have an unequivocal answer regarding who wants to start a new Cold War. Certainly, it is not Poland or the NATO alliance.”

The West says it has satellite images, videos and other evidence that show Russia is providing weapons to anti-government rebels in Ukraine, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Russia denies such accusations.

Poland has long been one of the fiercest critics of Russian actions and PiS is especially mistrustful. It wants a summit in Warsaw this year to bolster NATO’s presence in central and east Europe by positioning troops and equipment on Polish soil.

Duda reiterated Polish ambitions for an “intensive” NATO presence on its territory to be agreed at the July summit, which would be “tantamount to a permanent presence” — an arrangement that would be assured by troop rotations. Some NATO allies are reluctant, out of concern over the cost and the further deterioration with Moscow that would be likely to result.

U.S. quietly tells Russia where American troops are located inside Syria

MilitaryTimes: The Pentagon told the Russian military where U.S. Special Forces are located in Syria with the hopes that Russian aircraft will steer clear of that area and not risk bombing American service members, top military officials said Thursday.

The disclosure reveals an expanded level of military–to-military communication and cooperation between the two countries beyond the basic “memorandum of understanding,” or MOU, that was signed in October and focused on safety protocols for air crews operating in Syrian air space.

“We provided a geographical area that we asked them to stay out of because of the risk to U.S. forces,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters Thursday.

“This was a step we took to try to maintain their safety in a dangerous situation and this was a request that we made to the Russians outside the scope of the” memorandum of understanding, Cook said.

“Up to this point, [the Russians] have honored this request,” Cook said.

The official memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Russia came in October after Russia began daily airstrikes in Syria. The agreement was limited in scope because the U.S. and Russia have sharply different military goals in Syria. The U.S. is focused on defeating Islamic State militants while Russia is conducting airstrikes mainly in support of the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In December, the U.S. began sending teams of up to 50 special operations troops into northeastern Syria to support Syrian rebel groups fighting the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

About that same time, the U.S. told Russian military officials the general location of those troops, said Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Brown Jr., head of U.S. Air Forces Central Command.

Cook said high-level U.S. Defense Department officials shared the information with their counterparts in the Russian Ministry of Defense. He declined to say whether the U.S. and Russia had any formal written agreement.

The U.S. has rejected some similar requests from Russia. “There have been requests made by the Russians that we have not been willing to agree to,” Cook said.

The Air Force commander said the agreement is informal.

“I don’t have any assurances, really, from the Russians. But we told them … these general areas where we have coalition forces. And we don’t want them to strike there because all it’s going to do is escalate things,” Brown told reporters in a briefing from his office in Qatar.

“The Russians have actually outlined some areas — some of the airfields that they’re worried about, that they don’t want us flying close to, and really, typically, we don’t fly there anyway. So, that hasn’t been an issue.”

The Defense Department has repeatedly cited operational security and declined to say publicly where the U.S. special operations troops are in Syria.

Several local news reports say the U.S. forces have taken over an airfield in northeastern Syria, Rmeilan Air Base in the Syrian Kurdish region near Syria’s Iraqi and Turkish borders.

In January American helicopters were at the base as local workers expanded the runway, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The airfield was until recently under control of the Syrian Kurdish forces, known as the YPG, but was turned over to the U.S. to help expand American support for the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is the loose-knit coalition of American-backed militants fighting the Islamic State group.

Hillary – Sid: There is a Hezbollah Base in Cuba

Posted on by

Just for collaboration on the matter, the Justice Department published a 2014 report.

Additional Hezbollah facts.

A few years before the Obama administration removed Cuba from the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism Hezbollah established an operational base on the communist island, according to intelligence received by Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.

This Sid fella is good, but why didn’t  Hillary get the intelligence from her own State Department ops department? Did she ever really have security clearance or did she waive it and hand it over to Sidney Blumenthal? (snarky)

JW: The information comes straight from electronic mail released by the State Department over the weekend as part of ongoing litigation from several groups, including Judicial Watch, and media outlets surrounding Clinton’s use of a private server to send and receive classified information as Secretary of State. This alarming information has been ignored by the mainstream media, which served as the president’s most vocal cheerleader when he established diplomatic ties with Cuba last summer. After appearing for decades on the U.S. government’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism, the Obama administration officially removed it to lay the groundwork for a full renewal of diplomatic ties.

Nevertheless, the administration knew that the radical Lebanon-based Islamic group Hezbollah had opened a base in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S, a few years earlier. In a cable dated September 9, 2011 Clinton is informed that “extremely sensitive sources reported in confidence that the Israeli Intelligence and Security Service (Mossad) has informed the leadership of the Israeli Government that Hezbollah is establishing an operational base in Cuba, designed to support terrorist attacks throughout Latin America.” The cable goes on to say that “the Hezbollah office in Cuba is being established under direct orders from the current General Secretary Hasan Nasrallah, who replaced Musawi in 1992. According to the information available to this source, in preparation for establishment of the base, Nasrallah, working from inside of Lebanon, carried out secret negotiations with representatives of the Cuban Government, particularly the Cuban Intelligence Service (General Intelligence Directorate — DGI), agreeing to , maintain a very low profile inside of Cuba. Nasrallah also promised to take measures to avoid any trail of evidence that could lead back to Cuba in the event of a Hezbollah attack in Latin America.”

Obama’s report to Congress indicating his intent to rescind Cuba’s State Sponsor of Terrorism designation included a certification that Cuba had not provided any support for international terrorism during the previous six-months. It also claimed that Cuba had provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future. This was May, 2015 when the State Department announced the island nation was officially off the terrorist list because it “meets the statutory criteria for rescission.” In the announcement the agency also wrote this: “While the United States has significant concerns and disagreements with a wide range of Cuba’s policies and actions, these fall outside the criteria relevant to the rescission of a State Sponsor of Terrorism designation.” The new Clinton email creates a number of questions relating to the agency’s abrupt move to clear Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism.

Hezbollah’s involvement in Latin America is nothing new and in fact Judicial Watch has been reporting it for years. In 2013 JW published a story about Hezbollah infiltrating the southwest U.S. border by joining forces with Mexican drug cartels that have long operated in the region. The recently released Clinton email, states that a “particularly sensitive source” confirmed that in the 1980s Hezbollah carried out similar contingency casing operations against U.S., British, and Israeli facilities and businesses in Latin America, Europe and North Africa. In 1992 Islamic Jihad, acting on behalf of Hezbollah, bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina in retaliation for the death of Hezbollah General Secretary Abbas al-Musawi, the email says.

A few years before the Obama administration removed Cuba from the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism Hezbollah established an operational base on the communist island, according to intelligence received by Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.

The information comes straight from electronic mail released by the State Department over the weekend as part of ongoing litigation from several groups, including Judicial Watch, and media outlets surrounding Clinton’s use of a private server to send and receive classified information as Secretary of State. This alarming information has been ignored by the mainstream media, which served as the president’s most vocal cheerleader when he established diplomatic ties with Cuba last summer. After appearing for decades on the U.S. government’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism, the Obama administration officially removed it to lay the groundwork for a full renewal of diplomatic ties.

Nevertheless, the administration knew that the radical Lebanon-based Islamic group Hezbollah had opened a base in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S, a few years earlier. In a cable dated September 9, 2011 Clinton is informed that “extremely sensitive sources reported in confidence that the Israeli Intelligence and Security Service (Mossad) has informed the leadership of the Israeli Government that Hezbollah is establishing an operational base in Cuba, designed to support terrorist attacks throughout Latin America.” The cable goes on to say that “the Hezbollah office in Cuba is being established under direct orders from the current General Secretary Hasan Nasrallah, who replaced Musawi in 1992. According to the information available to this source, in preparation for establishment of the base, Nasrallah, working from inside of Lebanon, carried out secret negotiations with representatives of the Cuban Government, particularly the Cuban Intelligence Service (General Intelligence Directorate — DGI), agreeing to , maintain a very low profile inside of Cuba. Nasrallah also promised to take measures to avoid any trail of evidence that could lead back to Cuba in the event of a Hezbollah attack in Latin America.”

Obama’s report to Congress indicating his intent to rescind Cuba’s State Sponsor of Terrorism designation included a certification that Cuba had not provided any support for international terrorism during the previous six-months. It also claimed that Cuba had provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future. This was May, 2015 when the State Department announced the island nation was officially off the terrorist list because it “meets the statutory criteria for rescission.” In the announcement the agency also wrote this: “While the United States has significant concerns and disagreements with a wide range of Cuba’s policies and actions, these fall outside the criteria relevant to the rescission of a State Sponsor of Terrorism designation.” The new Clinton email creates a number of questions relating to the agency’s abrupt move to clear Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism.

Hezbollah’s involvement in Latin America is nothing new and in fact Judicial Watch has been reporting it for years. In 2013 JW published a story about Hezbollah infiltrating the southwest U.S. border by joining forces with Mexican drug cartels that have long operated in the region. The recently released Clinton email, states that a “particularly sensitive source” confirmed that in the 1980s Hezbollah carried out similar contingency casing operations against U.S., British, and Israeli facilities and businesses in Latin America, Europe and North Africa. In 1992 Islamic Jihad, acting on behalf of Hezbollah, bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina in retaliation for the death of Hezbollah General Secretary Abbas al-Musawi, the email says.

 

c 05782918 – FOIA State Cuba Hezbollah by Jason I. Poblete

Libya: Operation Sophia, When?

Posted on by

Operation Sophia

Tackling the refugee crisis with military means

by Thierry Tardy

The EU anti-migrant smuggling operation in the Mediterranean sea – known as ‘EUNAVFOR Med’ or ‘Operation Sophia’ – is now entering its operational phase, aimed at boarding and seizing on the high seas vessels suspected of being used for human smuggling and trafficking. This follows a first phase of intelligence gathering on smuggling networks and is intended to precede operations due to take place within the territorial waters of Libya as well as coercive actions against the smugglers – including on Libyan soil.

This military component of the EU response to the migrant and refugee crisis is innovative in different ways. Following the anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden (Atalanta), EUNAVFOR Med confirms the maritime dimension of CSDP in the management of new types of security threats. The operation also brings CSDP closer to the EU internal security portfolio and its Freedom, Security and Justice (FSJ) agenda. Full document here.

 

New Leak Expose EU Plan For Military Engagment In Libya

According to the operation’s commander, it’s a question of when, not if, the EU will enter Libya.

MintPress/Vice: The European Union is planning an extension of its military operation against human traffickers, known as Sophia, which could eventually include sending ground troops to war-torn Libya. According to a confidential document shared with VICE Alps and with Wikileaks by a highly-placed source in a EU member nation, who requested anonymity, the Sophia mission is ready to move into Libyan territorial waters to stop people smugglers there, but it will not do so until it is invited by Libyan authorities.

However, Libya does not have a unified national authority that can extend such an invitation, torn as it is between two rival governments and other armed groups.

The document, a report addressed to the European Union Military Committee as well as the Political and Security Committee and written by the Italian officer commanding the Sophia force, also makes mentions of a “phase 3” of the operation. That may refer to the eventual presence of EU troops in Libya — again, once a national government to work with has been estabilished.

The report by rear admiral Enrico Credendino, dated January 29, explains that the mission has been since last October in phase 2A, using 16 ships and aircraft from various EU nations to stop smugglers in international waters. Credendino calls that mission a success, saying his force has arrested 46 smugglers and destroyed 67 boats. People on the boats are rescued and taken to refugee centers generally located in Italy.

46 smugglers in custody may not seem like a large number in a crisis that has brought almost a million people to Europe last year, but according to the report, the Sophia operation has had a profound effect. Smugglers now choose to transport most people towards the European Union from the east through Greece instead of Libya, where Sophia is focused.

“Prior to the start of the operation there was an even split between the people using the central route and the eastern route, whereas now 16% (of) migrants use the central route, with almost 83% of migrants using the eastern route,” the report says, referencing the smuggling corridors through Libya and Southeastern Europe respectively.

“From a military perspective, I am ready to move to phase 2B in Libyan Territorial Waters,” Credendino wrote in the report. That would mean moving closer to the Libyan coast to arrest smugglers, “but there are a number of political and legal challenges that must be addressed before I can recommend such a transition,” the officer wrote.

Until there is a legal decision on “our powers to apprehend suspected smugglers in Territorial Waters and who will prosecute any suspected smugglers detained there,” the European forces (22 out of 28 EU nations are contributing) will stay out of Libyan waters.

According to the operation’s commander, it’s a question of when, not if, Sophia will move to Libya.

“When Operation SOPHIA progresses into phases 2B and 3, the smugglers will again most likely adapt quickly to the changing situation,” Credendino wrote. “Following the progress of Op SOPHIA into Libyan TTW or onto Libyan soil there will possibly be a greater risk of smugglers trying to counter the operation’s efforts in order to secure in their income from the activity,” he added, indicating that there are indeed plans for a possible move onto Libyan soil.

But the operation cannot do that until it has more ships and aircraft — which Credendino wrote in the report he would request this month — and most of all until there’s a government with the authority to ask the European forces to come to Libya.

Right now there are two rival bodies in the country, resulting from the 2014 election that has followed the toppling of Muammar Ghadafi’s regime in 2011. The internationally-recognized parliament is based in Tobruk, in the east, while the capital Tripoli hosts another one where Islamist factions dominate and which also claims to be the legitimate parliament. Adding to those entities and the forces they control is the Islamic State group, which has existed in Libya since 2014, originally in Derna where local militias pledged allegiance to it, and now in Sirte, a major city which the group now says is its Libyan capital. The United Nations has brokered a peace deal between the two rival parliaments, but a national unity government is nowhere near yet.

An image of the Sophia report from EUNAVFOR MED, the acronym of “European Union Naval Forces in the Mediterranean”  

According to the EU source, both combating local authorities have said they would not tolerate a possible European operation on Libyan soil.

A way to get an invitation would be, the report said, to offer training for the Libyan Navy and Coast guard, through which “we will be able to give the Libyan authorities something in exchange for their cooperation in tackling the irregular migration issue. This collaboration could represent one of the elements of the EU comprehensive approach to help secure their invitation to operate inside their territory during Phase 2 activities.”

“Moreover, training together during phase 2 could also be a key enabler to build confidence and facilitate the conduct of Phase 3 operations jointly with the Libyan authorities,” Credendino wrote.

The EU source claimed, however, that according to Frontex, the European Union agency in charge of the EU’s external borders, training Libyan naval forces and the local Coast Guard would actually mean training the leaders of the smuggling networks.