Category Archives: Russia

U.S. Military ‘Inside’ and Prepared for Cyber Wars

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U.S. Govt. Hackers Ready to Hit Back If Russia Tries to Disrupt Election

by Ken Dilanian, William M. Arkin and Cynthia McFadden

NBC: U.S. military hackers have penetrated Russia’s electric grid, telecommunications networks and the Kremlin’s command systems, making them vulnerable to attack by secret American cyber weapons should the U.S. deem it necessary, according to a senior intelligence official and top-secret documents reviewed by NBC News.

American officials have long said publicly that Russia, China and other nations have probed and left hidden malware on parts of U.S critical infrastructure, “preparing the battlefield,” in military parlance, for cyber attacks that could turn out the lights or turn off the internet across major cities.

It’s been widely assumed that the U.S. has done the same thing to its adversaries. The documents reviewed by NBC News — along with remarks by a senior U.S. intelligence official — confirm that, in the case of Russia.

U.S. officials continue to express concern that Russia will use its cyber capabilities to try to disrupt next week’s presidential election. U.S. intelligence officials do not expect Russia to attack critical infrastructure — which many believe would be an act of war — but they do anticipate so-called cyber mischief, including the possible release of fake documents and the proliferation of bogus social media accounts designed to spread misinformation.

On Friday the hacker known as “Guccifer 2.0” — which U.S. officials say is a front for Russian intelligence — tweeted a threat to monitor the U.S. elections “from inside the system.”

As NBC News reported Thursday, the U.S. government is marshaling resources to combat the threat in a way that is without precedent for a presidential election.

The cyber weapons would only be deployed in the unlikely event the U.S. was attacked in a significant way, officials say.

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U.S. military officials often say in general terms that the U.S. possesses the world’s most advanced cyber capabilities, but they will not discuss details of highly classified cyber weapons.

James Lewis, a cyber expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says that U.S. hacks into the computer infrastructure of adversary nations such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — something he says he presumes has gone on for years — is akin to the kind of military scouting that is as old as human conflict.

“This is just the cyber version of that,” he said.

In 2014, National Security Agency chief Adm. Mike Rogers told Congress that U.S. adversaries are performing electronic “reconnaissance” on a regular basis so that they can be in a position to disrupt the industrial control systems that run everything from chemical facilities to water treatment plants.

“All of that leads me to believe it is only a matter of when, not if, we are going to see something dramatic,” he said at the time.

Rogers didn’t discuss the U.S.’s own penetration of adversary networks. But the hacking undertaken by the NSA, which regularly penetrates foreign networks to gather intelligence, is very similar to the hacking needed to plant precursors for cyber weapons, said Gary Brown, a retired colonel and former legal adviser to U.S. Cyber Command, the military’s digital war fighting arm.

“You’d gain access to a network, you’d establish your presence on the network and then you’re poised to do what you would like to do with the network,” he told NBC News. “Most of the time you might use that to collect information, but that same access could be used for more aggressive activities too.”

**

Brown and others have noted that the Obama administration has been extremely reluctant to take action in cyberspace, even in the face of what it says is a series of Russian hacks and leaks designed to manipulate the U.S. presidential election.

Administration officials did, however, deliver a back channel warning to Russian against any attempt to influence next week’s vote, officials told NBC News.

The senior U.S. intelligence official said that, if Russia initiated a significant cyber attack against critical infrastructure, the U.S. could take action to shut down some Russian systems — a sort of active defense.

Retired Adm. James Stavridis, who served as NATO commander of Europe, told NBC News’ Cynthia McFadden that the U.S. is well equipped to respond to any cyber attack.

“I think there’s three things we should do if we see a significant cyber-attack,” he said. “The first obviously is defending against it. The second is reveal: We should be publicizing what has happened so that any of this kind of cyber trickery can be unmasked. And thirdly, we should respond. Our response should be proportional.”

**

The U.S. use of cyber attacks in the military context — or for covert action — is not without precedent.

During the 2003 Iraq invasion, U.S spies penetrated Iraqi networks and sent tailored messages to Iraqi generals, urging them to surrender, and temporarily cut electronic power in Baghdad.

In 2009 and 2010, the U.S., working with Israel, is believed to have helped deploy what became known as Stuxnet, a cyber weapon designed to destroy Iranian nuclear centrifuges.

Today, U.S. Cyber Command is engaged in cyber operations against the Islamic State, including using social media to expose the location of militants and sending spoof orders to sow confusion, current and former officials tell NBC News.

One problem, officials say, is that the doctrine around cyber conflict — what is espionage, what is theft, what is war — is not well developed.

“Cyber war is undefined,” Brown said. “There are norms of behavior that we try to encourage, but people violate those.”

*****

UK Announces New Policy on Cyber Attacks: ‘We Will Strike Back in Kind’

The interactions of the Active Cyber Defence program

In recognition of the risk cyber attacks pose, the government’s 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review classified cyber as a Tier One threat to the UK – that’s the same level as terrorism, or international military conflict. …

AtlanticCouncil: [W]e must keep up with the scale and pace of the threat we face. So today I am launching the government’s National Cyber Security Strategy for the next 5 years. The new strategy is built on three core pillars: defend, deter and develop, underpinned by £1.9 billion of transformational investment.

First of all Defend. We will strengthen the defences of government, our critical national infrastructure sectors like energy and transport, and our wider economy. We will work in partnership with industry to apply technologies that reduce the impact of cyber-attacks, while driving up security standards across both public and private sectors. We will ensure that our most sensitive information and networks, on which our government and security depend, are protected.

In practice, that means government taking a more active cyber defence approach – supporting industry’s use of automated defence techniques to block, disrupt and neutralise malicious activity before it reaches the user. The public have much to gain from active cyber defence and, with the proper safeguards in place to protect privacy, these measures have the potential to be transformational in ensuring that UK internet users are secure by default.

We are already deploying active cyber defence in government and we know it works: we’ve already successfully reduced the ability of attackers to spoof government e-mails as a key example. Until 6 weeks ago we were seeing faking of some @gov.uk addresses, such as ‘[email protected] ’. Criminals have been using these fake addresses to defraud people, by impersonating government departments. 50,000 spoof emails using the [email protected] address were being sent a everyday – now, thanks to our interventions, there are none.

The second pillar is deterrence. We will deter those who seek to steal from us, threaten us or otherwise harm our interests in cyberspace. We’re strengthening our law enforcement capabilities to raise the cost and reduce the reward of cyber criminality – ensuring we can track, apprehend and prosecute those who commit cyber crimes. And we will continue to invest in our offensive cyber capabilities, because the ability to detect, trace and retaliate in kind is likely to be the best deterrent. A small number of hostile foreign actors have developed and deployed offensive cyber capabilities, including destructive ones. These capabilities threaten the security of the UK’s critical national infrastructure and our industrial control systems.

If we do not have the ability to respond in cyberspace to an attack which takes down our power networks leaving us in darkness, or hits our air traffic control system, grounding our planes, we would be left with the impossible choice of turning the other cheek and ignoring the devastating consequences, or resorting to a military response. That is a choice that we do not want to face – and a choice we do not want to leave as a legacy to our successors. That is why we need to develop a fully functioning and operational cyber counter-attack capability. There is no doubt in my mind that the precursor to any future state-on-state conflict would be a campaign of escalating cyber-attacks, to break down our defences and test our resolve before the first shot is fired. Kinetic attacks carry huge risk of retaliation and may breach international law.

But in cyber space those who want to harm us appear to think they can act both scalably and deniably. It is our duty to demonstrate that they cannot act with impunity. So we will not only defend ourselves in cyberspace; we will strike back in kind when we are attacked.

And thirdly development. We will develop the capabilities we need in our economy and society to keep pace with the threat in the future. To make sure we’ve got a pipeline talented of people with the cyber skills we need, we will increase investment in the next generation of students, experts and companies.

I can announce we’re creating our latest cyber security research institute – a virtual network of UK universities dedicated to technological research and supported by government funding. The new virtual institute will focus on hardware and will look to improve the security of smart phone, tablets and laptops through innovative use of novel technology. We’re building cyber security into our education systems and are committed to providing opportunities for young people to pursue a career in this dynamic and exciting sector. And we’re also making sure that every young person learns the cyber life-skills they need to use the internet safely, confidently and successfully.

These three pillars that I’ve outlined – deter, defend and develop – are all supported by our new National Cyber Security Centre, based in Victoria in central London.

For the first time the government will have a dedicated, outward-facing authority on cyber – making it much simpler for business to get advice on cyber security and to interact with government on cyber security issues. Allowing us to deploy the high level skills that government has, principally in GCHQ, to support the development of commercial applications to enhance cyber security.

The Centre subsumes CERT UK and will provide the next generation of cyber security incident management. This means that when businesses or government bodies, or academic organisations report a significant incident, the Centre will bring together the full range of technical skills from across government and beyond to respond immediately. They will link up with law enforcement, help mitigate the impact of the incident, seek to repair the damage and assist in the tracing and prosecution of those responsible.

Across all its strands, the National Cyber Security Strategy we’re publishing today represents a major step forward in the fight against cyber attack.

Excerpts from “Speech Launching the National Cyber Security Strategy,” by Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, Nov. 1, 2016.

Twitter War Report Describes Spamming the Election Tweets

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And Twitter users believed….

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Twitter Election Bots Hide Tons of Reply Spam Behind Boring Themed Accounts

Motherboard: A much-discussed research paper out of Oxford this month concluded that millions of tweets about the presidential election are generated by highly automated Twitter accounts. According to the authors’ analysis, about a third of pro-Trump traffic, and one fifth of pro-Clinton tweets, is “driven by bots and highly automated accounts.”

The Oxford study pegged Twitter accounts as highly automated if they posted at least 50 times a day using any one of a group of election hashtags—such as #MAGA, #TrumpTrain, #ImWithHer, and #StrongerTogether—over a three-day period.

The paper conceded that “extremely active” humans might post 50 or more times per day on one of the 52 hashtags they selected, “especially if they are simply retweeting the content they find in their social media feed.”

At the Electome, a project of the Media Lab at MIT, we use complex machine learning algorithms to analyze the election conversation on Twitter. The Oxford paper made us curious about the possibility of spotting bots in the dashboard we recently built for journalists covering the election.

Read more: How Mexican Twitter Bots Shut Down Dissent

Bot detection can be challenging, partly because they come in different varieties. Some are purely automated accounts, while others layer some manual curation on top of automated tweets.

Last week, we noticed a spike while searching our Twitter data on the keyword “rigged.”

In early September, the “rigged” discussion on Twitter, which previously had revolved around a variety of issues including economic inequality and the electoral process, shifted suddenly toward immigration—that is, tweets containing the word “rigged” also used terms connected to immigration.

Digging into the data, we found one verbatim tweet showing up across a dozen or so handles, each of which posted the same message over and over each day: “Immigration Policy is RIGGED against American Workers #Trump2016 #FeelTheBern.”

Beyond using identical phrasing—including idiosyncratic capitalization—the tweets coming from these accounts all linked to the same video, which compares statements by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders about immigration policy. Each video, in turn, linked to the same anti-Clinton Twitter account.

Although the accounts don’t have the telltale bot profile image—the egg—based on their characteristics and activity, including breakneck output of strikingly similar content, these are clearly spam handles, and apparently at least somewhat automated.

Wading in further, we found that each account puts out a stream of photos and GIFs on a given theme, on top of a common rotation of anti-Clinton videos and memes.

The bots follow the same playbook: Publicly they tweet the same innocuous content fitting their theme, while simultaneously flooding the replies of public figures and media outlets—essentially piggybacking on famous tweets to influence users who see those tweets’ replies—with campaign-driven videos and memes.

One apparent bot account has pumped out more than 27,000 tweets since its creation in March, with content that tends to mix videos of Clinton advisor John Podesta with memes from the 1970s film A Clockwork Orange:

          TheTweetest @TheTweetest

you found out…

Hillary killed Osama bin Laden

..WITH HER EYES

@HillaryClinton

A zombie-themed account boasts 30,000 tweets since April: Podesta mingled with the undead:

Then there’s the seeming food porn handle that has put out 21,000 tweets since March: Podesta plus photogenic snacks:

In the last few days, these three accounts have tweeted thousands of times, sometimes hundreds of posts in a single hour. Most went entirely dark on October 30, for some reason, then geared up early on October 31 to put out hundreds more by noon.

Other apparently automated accounts pay homage to burgers, the Doge meme, geese, Hydrox cookies, knights, pigs, pulp science fiction, Putin, trains, and Transformers. They vary in frequency of activity, but each circulates the same videos with identical accompanying text.

Spambots like these have been spotted at other points in this election. In April, a conservative activist noticed a few hundred accounts frantically tweeting an identical call to file federal complaints against Ted Cruz for robocalls.

In June, a reporter for New York magazine mined the feeds of three pro-Trump, alt-right accounts, noting that they consistently replied to Trump’s tweets within mere seconds and with memes attached. Like the accounts we’ve identified here, many of their replies lacked any connection to the subject of Trump’s original tweet.

Last week, one of those three accounts circulated a hoax image of immigration officers arresting Hispanic voters, according to ProPublica’s Electionland.

Difficult as it is to track down accounts like these or gauge their prevalence, it’s even harder to discern how they might affect the overall Twitter discussion about the election. Whether or not the Oxford analysis proves accurate, its authors performed a service merely by raising public awareness of election bots.  More here including additional tweets.

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Then there was that weird FBI release on Twitter:

FBI to Conduct Internal Probe of Election-Season Tweets

GovernmentExec: Suddenly renewed activity on an FBI Twitter account publicizing Freedom of Information Act releases has prompted an internal bureau review of the propriety of such activity so close to the Nov. 8 election, according to a source involved in the matter.

In emails obtained by Government Executive sent to an ex-investigative reporter who filed complaints, the deputy at the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility on Tuesday revealed that the complaint about possible political favoritism in tweeting has been referred to the FBI’s Inspection Division.

“Upon the completion of its investigation, the matter will be referred to my office for adjudication,” wrote Candice Will, assistant director of the Office of Professional Responsibility to Jonathan Hutson, a former investigative reporter and now a media consultant. He received a similar email from Nancy McNamara, assistant director of the FBI’s Inspection Division, with two more FBI employees copied.

An FBI official told Government Executive that on Oct. 30, electronic patches were sent through the FBI’s content management system to fix the automatic feed of information that goes through the FOIA Twitter account.

First reported on Thursday by the liberal-leaning news service Think Progress, the new probe comes days after questions were raised about the FBI FOIA office’s release on Monday of 129 pages of documents pertaining to the 2001-2005 investigation of President Bill Clinton’s last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose wife was a longtime Clinton donor.

That probe, led for a time by current FBI Director James Comey as a U.S. attorney, ended with no prosecutions, which is why the Hillary Clinton campaign immediately complained that its timing seemed questionable. “Absent a (Freedom of Information Act) deadline, this is odd,” Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon tweeted. “Will FBI be posting docs on Trumps’ housing discrimination in ‘70s?”

It also comes less than a week after Comey shook up the presidential race with his letter to lawmakers and FBI staff suggesting that newly uncovered emails in an unrelated probe might be “pertinent” to the bureau’s suspended investigation Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of State Department emails.

The FBI responded to this week’s complaints with a statement outlining its FOIA policies:

“The FBI’s Records Management Division receives thousands of FOIA requests annually which are processed on a first in, first out basis,” it said. “By law, FOIA materials that have been requested three or more times are posted electronically to the FBI’s public reading room shortly after they are processed. Per the standard procedure for FOIA, these materials became available for release and were posted automatically and electronically to the FBI’s public reading room in accordance with the law and established procedures.”

But critics have now zeroed in on the bureau’s Twitter account at the FBI Records Vault. As noted by ex-investigative reporter Hutson, who first filed a complaint with the Justice Department inspector general, the FBI’s FOIA Twitter account had been silent for the past year.  “For the first few years after its 2011 launch, most of its tweets produced only 10 re-tweets, the most being 122,” Hutson said. “But suddenly, at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 30, it roared to life, not for business and not usual.”

The Tweet on Bill Clinton’s Marc Rich pardon, which was part of a probe on the Clinton Foundation, “was highly negative for Hillary Clinton” because it didn’t mention that no charges were brought, while another recent FBI tweet, announcing new documents pertaining to Republican candidate Donald Trump’s father’s past housing industry activities, favored Trump by “calling him a philanthropist,” which in Hutson’s view is “editorial shading.”

Also, Hutson said, “it is significant and telling” that the FBI FOIA people also recently tweeted the FBI’s ethics manual. “That shows they know full well that is it illegal for bureau employees to influence or effect the outcome of an election.” Hutson believes there may be violations of the Hatch Act, Justice Department guidelines and the FBI ethics manual. The FBI vault item on the Clinton Foundation, he pointed out, now has 9,000 re-tweets.

FOIA specialists consulted by Government Executive had mixed evaluations of this turn of events, both for the release of the FOIA documents and the related tweeting. “It’s nothing abnormal,” said Ronald Kessler, an author and longtime investigative journalist who has written on the FBI. “People don’t understand that it would be improper for the FBI to withhold a release of material to try to manipulate media coverage simply because agents happen to finish their work on it late Friday afternoon or just before an election. Like all of us humans, agents try to work extra hard to finish a project that is close to completion before a long weekend.”

Anne Weismann, executive director of the Campaign for Accountability, said after all her years of sending FOIA requests to the FBI, she found it “astonishing” that the FBI is tweeting, saying it “adds to the unprecedented nature” of this fall’s FBI’s intervention in the presidential race. She also found it odd that the FBI released what appears to be a “first round, partial” file of documents in the Marc Rich case, “with no context.” “Unless you knew they were talking about a major, very serious investigation of a former president, you wouldn’t know that the FBI never prosecuted Clinton,” she said. “I’ve pushed the FBI in litigation for release of documents on a rolling basis, and they always say no.”

Alex Howard, a senior analyst at the Sunlight Foundation, said the FBI has some flexibility in releasing documents. “Agencies are mandated to acknowledge a FOIA request in 20 days, although many in practice do not. Unless an agency is under instruction by a judge to release records responsive to a FOIA lawsuit on a specified timeline or by a given deadline, however, agencies can have some discretion in when they disclose records to a requester, unless their FOIA regulations specify otherwise. The “first in, first out” standard is one such rule: some agencies have pending FOIA requests going back over a decade.”

Daniel Schuman, policy director for Demand Progress, said, “There’s not enough information to make a judgment, which is why we would welcome an independent investigation, but on its face it is unusual.”

Putin’s Navy and Ukraine and Syria

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Ukraine rebuilds navy, with U.S. help, to counter Russian build-up in Crimea

Reuters: Ukraine is refitting and expanding its naval fleet, including repairing its flagship, the frigate “Hetman Sahaydachnyy”, to counter a Russian military build-up in the annexed territory of Crimea, the commander of the Ukrainian navy says.

The upgrade will be helped by $30 million worth of U.S. aid, part of a $500 million package from Washington for the Ukrainian military which Kiev expects to receive next year. (Graphic: Size of Russian navy tmsnrt.rs/2fEjLO1)

“Step by step we will rebuild our fleet from the beginning,” Vice Admiral Ihor Voronchenko told Reuters in an interview.

“Our capacities in terms of quality will be better that the ones which remained in Crimea.”

Ukraine lost two-thirds of its fleet, which had been mostly based in Sevastopol, when Russia seized Crimea from Kiev in 2014. Since then it has fought Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass region in a war that has killed nearly 10,000 people.

Before the Russian annexation, Moscow leased facilities from the Ukrainian state to house its Black Sea Fleet, which has been based in Crimea for more than two centuries. Those facilities, mainly around Sevastopol, are now being expanded.

Russia has started a program to militarize Crimea, including resurrecting Soviet-built facilities, building new bases and stationing soldiers there, according to a Reuters Special Report.

When Russia seized Crimea, Ukraine stopped the “Hetman Sahaydachnyy”, the landing ship “Yuriy Olifirenko”, the missile boat “Pryluky” and some gunboats from falling into Russian hands.

“We just started repairing works at our flagship,” Voronchenko said.

Two new gunboats are almost ready for service “and I am sure we will receive four more boats in July next year,” he said.

The navy also plans to have a new Corvette warship and a new missile boat by 2020.

Other measures by Ukraine to beef up its defense include raising the level of training for navy personnel and creating new units of coastal defense troops. Part of the training is being carried out in NATO member countries Italy, France and Britain.

Voronchenko said Russia was planning to turn Crimea into a “military base”, installing three submarine boats, new frigates and more airborne facilities. He also said that Russian ships were experiencing technical problems.

“We have information, we conduct surveillance. I cannot tell you everything,” he said. “But we can counter-attack all their hostile intentions. They also have problems in resources.” More here from Reuters.

Then there is the Mediterranean and Syria and the new maritime missions of Moscow.

Admiral Kuznetsov strike group
Then:
Russia’s new submarine mothership sets sail

Podmoskovye leaving the Zvezdochka Ship Repair Centre on 22 October for trials. Source: Zvezdochka Ship Repair Centre

Janes: The Russian Navy’s new submarine mothership Podmoskovye (Delta IV Stretch) set sail for the first time on sea trials on 22 October after a lengthy conversion.

Podmoskovye was originally the Project 667BDRM-class (Delta IV) nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) K-64, launched in 1986. It has now been converted to act as a mothership for the smaller special purpose Project 10831-class (‘Losharik’) and Project 1851-class (Paltus) submarines for underwater research and intelligence gathering activities.

Conversion of the submarine began in 1999 at the Zvezdochka Ship Repair Centre under Project 09787. This work included the removal of the submarine’s mid-section (containing the prominent missile launch tubes) and its replacement with the mid-section from a previous Russian submarine mothership, the Project 09774 (Yankee Stretch) boat K-411. This work is believed to have increased the length of the boat by 9 m to 175 m.

The submarine mothership is a converted Project 667BDRM-class (Delta IV) nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. (Zvezdochka Ship Repair Centre)

The submarine mothership is a converted Project 667BDRM-class (Delta IV) nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. (Zvezdochka Ship Repair Centre)

The Zvezdochka Ship Repair Centre stated on 24 October that repair and modernisation work on the submarine was now complete. The submarine is currently conducting factory sea trials to confirm the design characteristics of the submarine, the shipyard added.

***** The Power of Putin, is it Real?

The Russians have no strategic interests in Syria. There have been attempts to figure out why Russia intervened and what its end game is. Its intervention is limited and it is bogged down, just as the Americans are. Even if Aleppo falls, the war isn’t over. Yet they are there.

One theory is that Putin intervened in Syria because he believed Russia’s control over gas supplies to Europe was under threat. Perhaps, but any potential pipeline going through Iraq and war-torn Syria was unrealistic in the first place. Plus, a military operation to secure a pipeline (or to block one, whatever the case may be) makes little sense. Another theory is that Russia wants a naval base in Syria. That is possible, but it makes little military sense. Naval bases and operations depend on extensive logistical support for food, munitions and so on. These supplies are far too extensive to be flown in. And anything that would come to Syria from Russia by sea would come through the Bosporus. That is controlled by Turkey, and the U.S. Sixth Fleet could easily block exits. A naval base in Syria is more a liability than a warfighting asset.

But the Russians were not in Syria to save Bashar al-Assad, control pipelines, build naval facilities or intimidate the United States. They were there so Putin could appear to be more powerful than he was, and that was primarily for the benefit of his public. As the economy weakened and privations increased, he had to give it all a meaning, and Syria made him appear to be restoring Russia’s greatness. Convincing Western public opinion of his power was of secondary value, and in the course he made the cover of the Economist. More here.

 

The Road of Terror Leading into Mosul, Iraq

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Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

On the Road to Mosul With Iraq’s Golden Brigade

Elite Iraqi troops retake town of Bartella

by MATT CETTI-ROBERTS

WiB: A soldier from the Iraqi Army’s Golden Brigade ushers a party of journalists down a dusty side street in the town of Bartella and points to a flattened pile of concrete. The rubble is all that’s left of a building after a coalition air strike.

When the bomb hit, at least one Islamic State militant was hiding in the structure. We know this because a large blackened piece of a foot lies baking in the midday sun.

It has been sitting there for at least two days. The smell is ripe.

One member of our group, a translator called Ali, starts happily taking pictures with his iPhone. Six months ago, he barely escaped Mosul with his wife and children.

The journey involved sneaking through Islamic State lines and luckily finding a safe path through the minefields that surround Iraq’s second largest city. Ali still has relatives living in Mosul under the brutal terrorist group’s rule.

For him, this is personal.

Golden Brigade soldiers travel through Bartella on the back of an armored Humvee. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

On Oct. 21, 2016, the Golden Brigade, one of Iraq’s elite special operations units, recaptured Bartella. Islamic State fighters took over the town as they pushed into the Nineveh plains in August 2014. At that time, approximately 30,000 Iraqis lived here, mainly Christians and Assyrians.

Situated on the main highway between Erbil and Mosul, Bartella is a strategic point. On Oct. 17, 2016, the Iraqi Army’s started down the route as part of a multi-pronged push towards Islamic State’s de facto capital in the country.

This marking on the door of a former Islamic State headquarters warns troops there is an improvised bomb inside. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

The Golden Brigade found that two years of Islamic State occupation were not kind to Bartella. Many streets are full of rubble and overgrown weeds. We see the occasional burned-out shop and a lot of militant graffiti.

Right now, the town is still a front line. Before residents can return and rebuild, someone will have to remove hundreds of improvised explosive devices and other dangerous ordnance the extremists left behind.

Iraqi soldiers put up this Christian cross after retaking Bartella, a now routine practice after liberating Christian and Assyrian towns. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

Beyond Bartella, in other parts of the Nineveh Governorate, the Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga have gradually retaken more ground from Islamic State. Christian and Assyrian militias contributed to some of the operations.

Many of these local troops escaped just before the extremists arrived. Some fled Mosul after militants demanded non-Muslims convert to Islam, pay a tax or suffer execution.

This stencil says the house is property of Islamic State. Below is the Arabic letter “nun,” which militants used to mark Christian or Assyrian homes. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

After seizing Bartella and other towns, Islamic State disparagingly branded non-Muslim homes with the Arabic letter nun. In some passages, the Koran refers to Christians as Nasarah, or inhabitants of Nazareth, the birthplace of Jesus Christ. The symbol is reminiscent of the Nazis marking Jews with a yellow Star of David.

Golden Brigade soldiers relax in the shade. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

During War Is Boring’s visit to Bartella, some of the Golden Brigade troops were resting, while others were still clearing portions of the town. Soldiers mentioned a militant appeared that morning, shot at their comrades and then disappeared.

An Iraqi Army engineer deals with a discarded suicide belt. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

Islamic State hid improvised bombs throughout Bartella. Trying to advance quickly toward Mosul, the Iraqi Army couldn’t stop to disarm all of the devices. Someone else will have to clear the rest out later.

Iraqi Army engineers disarmed this improvised explosive device inside Bartella’s Mart Shmony Church. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

Although rigged with explosives, Islamic State left the Mart Shmony Church standing as the Golden Brigade approached Bartella. Despite the well-publicized demolition of churches in Mosul, the terrorists used this Christian house of worship for their own purposes.

A list of banal tasks for ISIS fighters on a whiteboard in the Mart Shmony Church. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

Empty ammunition boxes, stripper clips and bandoliers lie on a floor of the Mart Shmony Church. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

Militants drew this flag on a wall of the Mart Shmony Church. After Iraqi troops liberated the town, someone came hit it with a boot as an insult. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

A Christian card saying “Do not be afraid, I am with you” lies on a tiled floor outside the ransacked library. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

A Golden Brigade stands near a defaced statue in Bartella. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

Islamic State fighters blotted out the faces on this Christian mural. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

While in control of Bartella, Islamic State fighters defaced numerous statues, murals and other depictions of non-Muslim figures. The extremist group claimed these icons were an affront to their puritanical, exclusionary beliefs.

One of Islamic State’s home-built rocket sits abandoned in a graveyard attached to the Mart Shmony Church. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

The militants also smashed Christian gravestones and vandalized parts of the church.

A Christian flag hangs in the chapel of the Mart Shmony Church on the day that high ranking priests were due to arrive for the first time since August 2014. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo

Empty shell cases and machine gun belt links litter the ground inside Bartella. Matt Cetti-Roberts

The Iraqi Army’s fight for the town and the surrounding area was not easy. Although we don’t have official casualty figures, Golden Brigade soldiers mentioned comrades who died in the battle.

This TOS-1 thermobaric rocket launcher in Bartella is ready to support the Iraqi Army push on toward Mosul. Matt Cetti-Roberts

Beheaded by extremists, this statue depicting the Virgin Mary perches on a dirt pile where it was placed by Iraqi soldiers. Matt Cetti-Roberts

The deserted main street of what was once Bartella’s bazaar. Matt Cetti-Roberts

It’s hard to work out how much damage militants wrought on Bartella before the Iraqi Army arrived to liberate the town. In spite of the fighting, most houses seem intact.

The resting place of an Islamic State fighter. His severed foot was out in the street. Matt Cetti-Roberts

Still, when we visited Bartella, the aftermath of battle was obvious. Pieces of clothing poked from under nearby rubble.

The remains of a body is in there somewhere, but no one is in a hurry to bury it. For now, the remains will mark the spot where the coalition hit its mark.

The smell in certain parts of town hints at more corpses hidden in the debris. When the front line has moved far enough beyond Bartella, troops will clear the bodies and bombs Islamic State abandoned in the city.

Only then will the town be ready for its displaced residents to return and begin again.

Defused improvised explosive devices sit by the side of highway from Erbil to Mosul. Matt Cetti-Roberts
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A B-52 bomber refuels during a mission over Mosul in October 2016. U.S. Air Force photo

U.S. Military Blasts Islamic State’s Tunnels in Mosul

But getting at underground networks from the air is difficult

by JOSEPH TREVITHICK

WiB: On Oct. 17, 2016, Iraqi troops and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters — backed by American and other foreign forces — began to liberate Mosul and its surrounding environs from Islamic State. The offensive quickly uncovered extensive terrorist tunnels in the city.

The Pentagon responded by blasting the underground network for the sky.

“Many of you have seen and noted the enemy’s developed extensive tunneling networks in some of the areas that they use for tactical movement and to hide weapons,” U.S. Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on Oct. 28, 2016.

In total, American strikes destroyed “46 of those tunnels since the liberation battle for Mosul started on October 17th, reducing the threat from a favored enemy tactic.”

However, despite decades of experience, destroying below-ground linkages from the air is still difficult, especially in areas full of innocent civilians. According to the U.S. Air Force, American planes didn’t drop any bunker busting bombs during these missions.

“The BLU-118, BLU-121 or BLU-122 warheads or the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator have not been used in the Liberation of Mosul campaign,” Kiley Dougherty, the head of media operations for U.S. Air Force’s Central Command told War Is Boring by email. “ In fact, these weapons have not been used at all in support of Operation Inherent Resolve.”

Inherent Resolve is the Pentagon’s nickname for the campaign against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

The Mosul operation is not the Pentagon’s first experience with tunnels. During the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong insurgents famously dug wide-ranging subterranean mazes throughout South Vietnam.

In the 1970s, North Korea dug at least four large tunnels under the Demilitarized Zone to sneak spies and commandos into the South. The top American command on the peninsula created a “tunnel neutralization team” to assess and seal the passages.

Underground bunkers and cave complexes were features in the first Gulf War in 1991, the intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Pentagon has taken note of Egyptian and Israeli efforts to stop Palestinian and other militants from digging under their borders.

In December 2001, the American commandos famously tried to flush out Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts from the Tora Bora caves near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Massive B-52 bombers pounded the mountains, but could only keep the terrorists hunkered down.

“Entire lines of defense were immolated by cascades of precisely directed 2,000-lb. bombs,” U.S. Army historians wrote in 2005. “But the depths of the caves and extremes of relief limited their effectiveness considerably.”

Air Force MC-130 special operations transports dropped 15,000 pound “Daisy Cutter” bombs, but couldn’t uproot the militants. The Al Qaeda leader eventually slipped across the border to settle near the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

The last Daisy Cutter bomb explodes on a training range in Utah in 2008. U.S. Air Force photo

Within two years, the Pentagon had flown similar missions in Iraq. Despite the bombardment, on Dec. 13, 2003, a team of regular and elite U.S. troops found long-time Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein very much alive in a makeshift bunker outside the city of Tikrit.

By November 2015, tunnels again appeared as a factor in the fight against Islamic State. Faced with deadly American air strikes, the terrorists had literally gone to ground.

“In November 2015, when Kurdish forces entered Sinjar, Iraq, … they found that ISIL had adapted to air attacks by building a network of tunnels that connected houses,” U.S. Army analysts explained in a February 2016 report, using a common acronym for Islamic State.

“The sandbagged tunnels, about the height of a person, contained ammunition, prescription drugs, blankets, electrical wires leading to fans and lights, and other supplies.”

War Is Boring obtained this and other Army reviews of enemy tactics through the Freedom of Information Act.

But by the time the terrorist tunnels became an issue in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. Air Force had replaced the Vietnam-era Daisy Cutters. Instead, American crews had access to a number of newer specialized bombs.

Shortly after the Tora Bora debacle, American fliers received the first BLU-118s. Pentagon weaponeers cooked up the 2,000 pound thermobaric bombs specifically to blow up caves and tunnels.

Thermobaric warheads create massive, fireball-like explosions. If you can get one into a bunker or other confined space, the blast will bounce off the walls for an even more devastating effect.

In 2005, the Pentagon bought improved BLU-121s with a new delay fuze. This meant the bomb could bury itself deeper inside a tunnel before going off, causing maximum damage. Crews can fit both weapons with laser guidance kits for precise attacks.

And then there are bunker-busters such as the BLU-122 and GBU-57. These bombs have specialized features to break through reinforced sites, deep underground. Only the B-52 and B-2 bombers can carry the 30,000 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator.

Sailors on the carrier USS ‘Dwight D. Eisenhower’ prepare bombs for strikes on Islamic State in October 2016. U.S. Navy photo

All of these weapons are great for attacking remote caves or isolated, underground military bases. They’re not necessarily good for attacking small tunnels in urban areas.

Even out in the open, fliers generally need powerful sensors or help from troops on the ground just to spot subterranean sites from the air. Though laser and GPS-guided bombs can strike within feet of a specific target, tunnel entrances might not be much larger than a person’s shoulders.

On top of that, in a densely packed city, any errant bombs have a greater chance of hitting unintended targets. A tunnel network under a house or apartment block presents a particularly problematic situation.

Add a thermobaric warhead to the mix and the results could be even more disastrous. There are reports Islamic State turned to human shields to ward off air strikes and Baghdad’s own thermobaric rocket launchers and artillery.

“We have seen many instances in the past where Daesh have used human shields in order to try and facilitate their escape,” Dorrian noted in his press conference. “Right now they’re using human shields to make the Iraqi Security Forces’ advance more difficult.”

The Pentagon would have run into similar hurdles when hitting the terror group’s tunnels in Mosul. By using conventional bombs, American crews might have had a harder time hitting the mark, but could better avoid unnecessary collateral damage. At the same time, this dynamic no doubt serves to reinforce the value of tunnel networks to the Islamic State.

And any assault on the group’s de facto Syrian capital in Raqqa will likely turn up more tunnels.

“Over time, adversaries of the U.S. and its allies have repeatedly shown that they are extremely adept at their use of this type of environment,” U.S. Army experts declared in a review of Hezbollah’s use of tunnels during Israel’s incursion into Lebanon in 2006.

“[This] consequently presents a situation in which, despite the U.S.’s technological superiorities, a threat could potentially gain an advantage over the U.S. and achieve victory.”

Thankfully, so far, Islamic State’s tunnels have only delayed Baghdad’s troops and their American partners.

    • Fear of Russia, Tiny Estonia Trains Citizens for War Skills

    Posted on by

    In part from Free Beacon:

    The service, known in Estonia as Kaitsepolitseiamet or “Kapo,” produces an Annual Review summarizing trends and internal threats to Estonia. The 2015 Annual Review, released last week, includes sections on cyber security, preventing international terrorism, and fighting corruption, among other issues.

    However, the first page of the report makes it clear what the service considers the top threat to Estonian and European security: “In the context of Russian aggression, the security threat arising from a weakening of the European Union is many times greater than that arising from the refugees settling in Estonia.”

    “This is the most important point,” Martin Arpo, Kapo’s deputy director general, told the Washington Free Beacon. “For Estonia, the report is a reminder: let’s think about real security threats, and not imaginary ones. The migration crisis is bringing focus away from real threats not only in Estonia but in Europe, as well. The only hope for Putin to fulfill his ambitions is that Europe and NATO are split or have controversies inside. The refugee crisis is really the only serious topic that can bring these controversies.”

    The first page of the report references the Gerasimov Doctrine, a vision of war through non-military means published by Russian Chief of General Staff Valeriy Gerasimov in early 2013. More here.

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    Spooked by Russia, Tiny Estonia Trains a Nation of Insurgents

    Members of the Estonian Defense League set off for a patrol competition near the town of Turi in central Estonia. The events, held nearly every weekend, are called war games, but they are not intended to be fun. James Hill for The New York Times

    NYT’s/TURI, Estonia — Her face puffy from lack of sleep, Vivika Barnabas peered down at the springs, rods and other parts of a disassembled assault rifle spread before her.

    At last, midway through one of this country’s peculiar, grueling events known as patrol competitions, she had come upon an easy task.

    Already, she and her three teammates had put out a fire, ridden a horse, identified medicinal herbs from the forest and played hide-and-seek with gun-wielding “enemies” in the woods at night.

    By comparison, this would be easy. She knelt in the crinkling, frost-covered grass of a forest clearing and grabbed at the rifle parts in a flurry of clicks and snaps, soon handing the assembled weapon to a referee.

    A team loaded and removed cartridges from rifle magazines in a timed test. James Hill for The New York Times

    “We just have to stay alive,” Ms. Barnabas said of the main idea behind the Jarva District Patrol Competition, a 24-hour test of the skills useful for partisans, or insurgents, to fight an occupying army, and an improbably popular form of what is called “military sport” in Estonia.

    The competitions, held nearly every weekend, are called war games, but are not intended as fun. The Estonian Defense League, which organizes the events, requires its 25,400 volunteers to turn out occasionally for weekend training sessions that have taken on a serious hue since Russia’s incursions in Ukraine two years ago raised fears of a similar thrust by Moscow into the Baltic States.

    Estonia, a NATO member with a population of 1.3 million people and a standing army of about 6,000, would not stand a chance in a conventional war with Russia. But two armies fighting on an open field is not Estonia’s plan, and was not even before Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, said European members of NATO should not count on American support unless they pay more alliance costs.

    Since the Ukraine war, Estonia has stepped up training for members of the Estonian Defense League, teaching them how to become insurgents, right down to the making of improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.s, the weapons that plagued the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another response to tensions with Russia is the expansion of a program encouraging Estonians to keep firearms in their homes.

    The Jarva competition entailed a 25-mile hike and 21 specific tasks, such as answering questions of local trivia — to sort friend from foe — hiding in a bivouac deep in the woods and correctly identifying types of Russian armored vehicles. On a recent weekend, 16 teams of four people had turned out, despite the bitter, late fall chill. The competition was open to men, women and teenagers.

    Ms. Barnabas and her three teammates had spent the night hiding in a nest lined with pine needles and leaves on the forest floor, while men playing the occupying army stomped around, firing guns in the air and searching for them. Contestants who are found must hand over one of the 12 “life cards” they carry, which detracts from their final score.

    “It’s cold and you lie on the ground, looking up at the stars and hearing shooting and footsteps nearby,” said Ms. Barnabas, a petite woman who is also a coordinator for the league in her day job. She was swathed in a few layers of long underwear and camouflage.

    “It wasn’t so bad because we slept cuddled together,” she said, flirtatiously, of her female team. The footsteps came and went, and the women stayed quiet. “They didn’t find us.”

    A team demonstrated its first-aid skills during the competition. Members bring their rifles and rucksacks packed with camping comfort foods like salami, Snickers bars and Gatorade, as well as first-aid kits.

    Encouraging citizens to stash warm clothes, canned goods, boots and a rifle may seem a cartoonish defense strategy against a military colossus like Russia. Yet the Estonians say they need look no further than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to see the effectiveness today, as ever, of an insurgency to even the odds against a powerful army.

    Estonia is hardly alone in striking upon the idea of dispersing guns among the populace to advertise the potential for widespread resistance, as a deterrent.

    “The best deterrent is not only armed soldiers, but armed citizens, too,” Brig. Gen. Meelis Kiili, the commander of the Estonian Defense League, said in an interview in Tallinn, the capital.

    A team of military cadets won the competition. James Hill for The New York Times

    The number of firearms, mostly Swedish-made AK-4 automatic rifles, that Estonia has dispersed among its populace is classified. But the league said it had stepped up the pace of the program since the Ukraine crisis began. Under the program, members must hide the weapons and ammunition, perhaps in a safe built into a wall or buried in the backyard.

    For the competitions, members bring their rifles and rucksacks packed with camping comfort foods like salami, Snickers bars and Gatorade, as well as first-aid kits.

    But why bother with the stocking caps, the hidden ammunition and the rucksacks if, under Article 5 of the NATO charter, the United States is obliged to send the full might of its military hurtling into Estonia in an attack?

    The Estonian government says that ignores Article 3, which stipulates that each member should also prepare for individual defense. But skeptics cite another reason: fears that the United States and Europe might not have the stomach for a confrontation with Russia, even though they are currently building up their military presence in the Baltics. That would leave Estonia to fend for itself.

    A member of the team that placed second sank to the ground to recuperate after crossing the finish line. James Hill for The New York Times

    Whatever the reason, training for underground warfare is going ahead here, where partisans are still glorified for fighting the Nazis and Soviets in World War II.

    “The guerrilla activity should start on occupied territory straight after the invasion,” General Kiili said. “If you want to defend your country, we train you and provide conditions to do it in the best possible way.”

    Members of the community also take part in the drills.

    The competition to identify edible and medicinal herbs, for example, was run by a high school biology teacher. The fire department staged a competition to put out a small blaze in a barrel. A horseback-riding school for children tested moving a “wounded” colleague by horse.

    Jaan Vokk, a retired corporal with the Estonian Army, ran the competition to identify armored vehicles on a slide show on his laptop. “Sometimes it feels like they are getting us ready for something,” he said ominously, while quizzing a teenage girl in camouflage to identify Russian tanks.

    The girl was ready, rattling off the names as pictures flashed on the computer screen — “T-72 main battle tank, BTR-80 armored personnel carrier” — and earning a nearly perfect score.

    “Partisan war is our way,” Mr. Vokk said. “We cannot equal their armor. We have to group in small units and do a lot of destruction of their logistics convoys. We needle them wherever we can.”

    Mr. Vokk served with the army in Afghanistan, where, he said, he gained an appreciation for the effectiveness of I.E.D.s.

    “They scared us,” he said. “And a Russian is just a human being as well. He would be scared.”