Category Archives: Russia

Govt Report on Prevention of Nationwide Cyber Catastrophe

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A good first step for sure, however there needs to be a government-wide decision on cyber attacks being an act of war and how to respond.

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The Cyberspace Solarium Commission’s proposes a strategy of layered cyber deterrence. Our report consists of over 80 recommendations to implement the strategy. These recommendations are organized into 6 pillars:
  1. Reform the U.S. Government’s Structure and Organization for Cyberspace.
  2. Strengthen Norms and Non-Military Tools.
  3. Promote National Resilience.
  4. Reshape the Cyber Ecosystem.
  5. Operationalize Cybersecurity Collaboration with the Private Sector.
  6. Preserve and Employ the Military Instrument of National Power.

Click here to download the full report.

A much-anticipated government report aimed at defending the nation against cyber threats in the years to come opens with a bleak preview of what could happen if critical systems were brought down.

“The water in the Potomac still has that red tint from where the treatment plants upstream were hacked, their automated systems tricked into flushing out the wrong mix of chemicals,” the Cyberspace Solarium Commission wrote in the opening lines of its report.

“By comparison, the water in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has a purple glint to it. They’ve pumped out the floodwaters that covered Washington’s low-lying areas after the region’s reservoirs were hit in a cascade of sensor hacks,” it continues.

So begins the report two years in the making from a congressionally mandated commission made up of lawmakers and top Trump administration officials, pointing to the vulnerabilities involved with critical systems being hooked up to the internet.

The report, which includes more than 75 recommendations for how to prevent the cyber doomsday it spells out, and the commission that made it were both mandated by the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The commissioners, who include co-chairmen Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), highlight a range of issues to address, but zero in on election security as “priority.”

“The American people still do not have the assurance that our election systems are secure from foreign manipulation,” King and Gallagher wrote in the report. “If we don’t get election security right, deterrence will fail and future generations will look back with longing and regret on the once powerful American Republic and wonder how we screwed the whole thing up.”

The focus on shoring up election security, and the agreed-upon recommendations for how to do this, sets the report apart from the approach to the subject on Capitol Hill, where it has been a major issue of contention between Republicans and Democrats since Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Beyond election security, the commissioners call for overarching government reform to address cyber vulnerabilities. Chief among these is calling on the White House to issue an updated national strategy to address cyber threats and to establish a national cybersecurity director position to coordinate efforts.

In terms of congressional action, commissioners recommend that Congress create cybersecurity committees in both the House and Senate, establish a Bureau of Cybersecurity Statistics, and establish an assistant secretary position at the State Department to lead international efforts around cybersecurity.

“While cyberspace has transformed the American economy and society, the government has not kept up,” commissioners wrote in calling for reforms.

The commission also zeroed in on “imposing costs” to adversaries who attempt to attack the U.S. online. In order to do so, it recommended that the Department of Defense conduct vulnerability assessments of its weapons systems, including nuclear control systems, and that it make cybersecurity preparedness a necessity.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber agency, would be empowered as the “lead agency” at the federal level.

The report’s recommendations were debated on and pinpointed by a group of high-ranking commissioners who also included FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist, Transportation Security Administration Administrator David Pekoske, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), and Rep. James Langevin (D-R.I.).

Langevin said in a statement on Wednesday that the report is intended to shore up the nation’s cyber “resiliency for years to come.”

“Our charge in drafting this report was to prevent a cyber event of significant national consequence, and we know that the short- and long-term recommendations we crafted will better position us to realize the promise of the Internet, while avoiding its perils,” Langevin said. “The sooner our recommendations are implemented, the better positioned the country will be to prevent and respond to incidents that can disrupt the American way of life.”

The report’s recommendations may soon have real-world consequences on Capitol Hill.

Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee’s cyber panel, told The Hill this week that there “definitely will be some legislation” stemming from the report’s recommendations, and that hearings would likely be held.

Katko noted that he had talked with Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) about the Senate also taking action around the report.

“This report screams of the need for bipartisan action on this, and I hope that we can leave the politics out of it, and I hope we can attack these problems quickly and effectively,” Katko said.

Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), the cyber subcommittee’s chairman, opened a hearing on Wednesday by praising the report’s recommendations and saying he looked forward to working to “codifying” the ideas alongside House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).

Industry groups also reacted positively to the report’s recommendations. Tom Gann, the chief public policy officer of cybersecurity firm McAfee, told The Hill in a statement that he agreed with most of the report’s findings and hoped that they are “acted upon with speed.”

Protect Our Power, a nonprofit with the goal of protecting the electric grid, also praised the report.

“These are compelling recommendations, echoing issues we have highlighted for several years now, and action is long overdue,” Jim Cunningham, executive director of the group, said in a statement. “Without a reliable supply of electricity before, during and following a disabling cyberattack, none of our critical infrastructure can function.”

While there may be legislative action soon – and praise from industry groups – both Gallagher and King emphasized in the report that their main aim was for it to open the eyes of Americans to the dangers posed by cyberattacks on critical systems.

“The status quo is inviting attacks on America every second of every day,” the co-chairmen wrote. “We all want that to stop. So please do us, and your fellow Americans, a favor. Read this report and then demand that your government and the private sector act with speed and agility to secure our cyber future.”

4 on Trial for Shooting Down MH17

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FOR THE 298 victims of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, shot down by a Russian Army missile over Ukraine in 2014, even a hint of justice has been a long time coming. But each year, investigators and prosecutors edge the case forward. On March 9th a court in the Netherlands will commence the criminal trial of four men (three Russians and one Ukrainian) accused of playing crucial roles in the decision to fire the missile. The hearing will be held in a courtroom next to Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, from where the flight to Kuala Lumpur took off. The defendants will be absent, though at least one will be represented by lawyers, since Russia does not extradite its own nationals and the location of the Ukrainian is unknown. But the biggest absence of all will be that of the Russian government, which bears the ultimate responsibility for supplying, and probably firing the missile.

Russia says its input into MH17 crash over Ukraine ignored ...

Dutch prosecutors say their case runs to 30,000 pages of documentation. After the crash, a research unit called the Joint Investigative Team (JIT)—including investigators from the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine—spent five years meticulously establishing what had happened. The plane’s wreckage was shipped to the Netherlands and reconstructed. Ballistics experts established that it had been shot down by a Russian-made BUK anti-aircraft missile. Mobile-phone conversations intercepted by the SBU (Ukraine’s secret police) appeared to show that Russian military personnel detailed to help pro-Russian separatists in Donbass had directed the operation.

 

Meanwhile Bellingcat, a digital-forensics group, collected thousands of public-source records from ordinary citizens’ smartphone pictures and dashboard cameras. These showed a convoy including a BUK launcher driving from a Russian army base to the Ukrainian border in the days before MH17 was shot down, and returning just afterwards with one missile missing. The JIT later confirmed Bellingcat’s research, and recovered the spent fuselage of a BUK missile from a field in Ukraine. In 2018 the JIT’s prosecutors announced they had determined that the missile belonged to the Russian army’s 53rd Anti-aircraft Brigade.

The men now facing trial all played important roles in Donbass’s rebel militias in 2014. The most senior, Igor Girkin (also known as “Strelkov”), a Russian nationalist and former army officer, was the minister of defence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. He maintains his innocence. Sergei Dubinski and Oleg Pulatov, both Russian, and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian, served in the rebels’ military-intelligence unit. They are accused of having played command roles, rather than of firing the rocket themselves. It is unclear how they will plead or even whether they will respond to the charges. The SBU’s mobile-phone recordings allegedly include two of the defendants conversing with senior Russian officials. No one believes they intended to shoot down an airliner. Rather, the theory is that they assumed the plane belonged to the Ukrainian air force and did not bother to check.

Russia denies having anything to do with the downing of MH17 or giving support to the Donbass rebels. Since the crash it has issued a stream of disinformation and (often conflicting) alternative theories of what happened. The Russian defence ministry released supposed radar data of the incident showing a second aircraft, perhaps a Ukrainian fighter. When the data were shown to have been faked, the ministry never spoke of it again. Last summer after Ukraine captured Vladimir Tsemakh, allegedly an air-defence specialist for the rebels, Russia insisted he be included in a prisoner exchange (an odd demand given that it claims never to have supported the separatists). He was sent to Russia over Dutch objections, and is now believed to be living in Donbass again.

Rebels stall as MH17 bodies left to rot source

The trial’s first days will be devoted to procedural issues, and the defendants’ absence will rob the scene of drama. But although much of the evidence is already public, Dutch prosecutors are thought to have much more unrevealed information which will come out at trial. The trial is expected to last at least for the rest of the year. Even if it results in convictions in absentia, Russia is highly unlikely to change its mind about extraditing the accused men.

Yet while the defendants may not be present, the families of those who died on Flight MH17 will be. Time has been allotted for them to make statements to the court. Russia’s strategy of obstruction and obfuscation has frustrated their demands for justice, but the trial may provide closure for some.

Details of Bernie Sanders and Yaroslavl, the Sister City

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One has to travel to Russia and visit the archives in Yaroslavl to see the full details of the trip then Mayor of Burlington, Vermont Bernie Sanders took for his honeymoon.

WaPo

IN part from the NYT’s: Many of the details of Mr. Sanders’s Cold War diplomacy before and after that visit — and the Soviet effort to exploit Mr. Sanders’s antiwar agenda for their own propaganda purposes — have largely remained out of sight.

The New York Times examined 89 pages of letters, telegrams and internal Soviet government documents revealing in far greater detail the extent of Mr. Sanders’s personal effort to establish ties between his city and a country many Americans then still considered an enemy despite the reforms being initiated at the time under Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet general secretary.

They also show how the Kremlin viewed these sister city relationships as vehicles to sway American public opinion about the Soviet Union.The Sanders campaign didn’t dispute the documents’ authenticity; the English-language documents were shared with the campaign and the relevant Russian documents were described. At the time of Mr. Sanders’s announcement in 1987 that Burlington would seek a Soviet sister city, several dozen other American cities already had such a relationship or had applied for one.

The documents, available at the Yaroslavskaya Region State Archive in Yaroslavl, are included in a file titled “documents about the development of friendly relations of the city of Yaroslavl with the city of Burlington in 1988.”

Mr. Sanders’s involvement in the Cold War debate grew in the 1980s as he forcefully opposed the Reagan administration’s plans to have Burlington and other American cities make evacuation plans for a potential nuclear war.

Instead, Mr. Sanders reached out to the Soviet Union via an organization based in Virginia, requesting a sister-city partnership with the Cold War adversary in an effort to end the threat of nuclear annihilation. In December 1987, the records show, Mr. Sanders spoke by phone with Yuri Menshikov, the secretary of the Soviet sister-city organization in Moscow. In a follow-up letter later that month, Mr. Sanders said he had received word that Yaroslavl would be an ideal partner. He proposed leading a Burlington delegation to Yaroslavl to lay the foundation for a sister-city relationship.

He suggested arriving on May 9 — the day that the Soviet Union celebrated its victory over Nazi Germany — and said he was especially interested in discussing economic development, the police, winter street cleaning, libraries, and plumbing and sewer systems. “People there seemed reasonably happy and content,” Mr. Sanders told reporters in Burlington about Yaroslavl, a city of about 600,000. “I didn’t notice much deprivation.”

Two days after returning to Vermont, Mr. Sanders wrote to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, asking for help in setting up the sister-city program.

“It is my strong belief that if our planet is going to survive, and if we are going to be able to convert the hundreds of billions of dollars that both the United States and the Soviet Union are now wasting on weapons of destruction into areas of productive human development, there is going to have to be a significant increase in citizen-to-citizen contact,” Mr. Sanders wrote. The sister city program was something of a capstone to nearly a decade’s worth of foreign policy activism in Burlington City Hall. As mayor, Mr. Sanders championed a range of international causes that often aligned him with left-wing movements and leaders in other countries, and against the Reagan administration, which he described as pursuing a strategy of military escalation that risked setting off a nuclear war.

Mr. Sanders pressed the city government to take positions against American intervention in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and against the invasion of Grenada. In 1985, he visited Managua for the sixth anniversary of the Sandinista revolution and met with its leader, Daniel Ortega. To read the full article from the NYT’s, click here.

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Just a lil more from Politico:

Bruce Seifer, a top economic development aide to Sanders when he was mayor, said that 100 residents from Yaroslavl immigrated to Burlington after the trip and others visited.

“Over time, it had a positive impact on to the economy,” he said. “Businesses started doing exchanges between Burlington and Yaroslavl.”

Davitian, who lived in Burlington at the time, said progressives were thrilled by Sanders’ trip to the Soviet Union, while everyday residents didn’t mind. “As long as the streets were getting paved, there wasn’t opposition to him as an activist mayor,” she said.

When Sanders’ delegation returned to Burlington, CCTV captured the group on film in a hopeful mood, applauding the Soviet Union’s after-school programs, low rent costs and hospitality.

At the same time, they admit the poor choices of available food. Sanders says he was impressed by the beauty of the city and Soviet officials’ willingness “to acknowledge many of the problems that they had.”

“They’re proud of the fact that their health care system is free,” he says, but concede that the medical technology is far behind that of the United States.

Later that year, the relationship was officially established. Since then, “exchanges between the two cities have involved mayors, business people, firefighters, jazz musicians, youth orchestras, mural painters, high school students, medical students, nurses, librarians, and the Yaroslavl Torpedoes ice hockey team,” according to Burlington’s city government. A delegation traveled there as recently as 2016.

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One last thing from National Review to consider:

Sanders made further globe-trotting expeditions to socialist countries. He visited Cuba, scoring a meeting with Havana’s mayor. In 1985 he attended the celebrations marking the sixth anniversary of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. “In a letter addressed to the people of Nicaragua, penned in conjunction with that trip, Sanders denounced the activities of the Reagan administration, which he said was under the influence of large corporations,” the Guardian notes. “In the long run, I am certain that you will win,” Sanders wrote, “and that your heroic revolution against the Somoza dictatorship will be maintained and strengthened.” (The Sandinistas were ousted by Nicaragua’s voters in 1990).

Sanders isn’t the only radical U.S. politician to have a weakness for Communist dictatorships. In 2013, Bill de Blasio was caught off guard during his campaign for New York mayor when a Cuban-American radio host challenged him about Castro’s regime.

Ino Gómez, who fled Cuba in 1970, asked de Blasio in an interview about what he was thinking when he chose to violate U.S. law and spend his honeymoon in Cuba in 1991.

“What did you see in Cuba? What is your impression going on a honeymoon in a country that hasn’t had free elections in the last 50 years? What did you get from that trip?” Gómez asked.

A defensive de Blasio sputtered: “I didn’t go on a trip to study the country. I don’t pretend to have full perspective of the country.” He then acknowledged Cuba is undemocratic but praised “some good things that happened — for example, in health care.”

Gomez was having none of it. “I just had to send my aunt in Cuba some, you know, the thread to have stitches, because they don’t have in Cuba the thread,” he told the future mayor of Gotham.

De Blasio chose not to reply and the host moved on to other topics, giving him a pass on his 1988 trip to Nicaragua in support of the Sandinistas.

Bill de Blasio to endorse Bernie Sanders

In closing, remember that New York Mayor de Blasio is campaigning for Sanders…gotta wonder if all this is well known to the gigantic grass-roots operation Sanders has built for his presidential campaign.

 

US Unable to Trace $716 Million of Military Gear

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It was and still is a nasty conflict in Syria, Iraq and even in Turkey. Islamic State lost their control of land mass but the terror group(s) still operate in various locations.
The Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General, which was released to the public on Tuesday, shows that most of the CTEF weaponry’s whereabouts cannot be verified. The reason, according to the audit, is that officials with the Special Operations Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, failed to maintain detailed lists of all military equipment given to Washington’s allies in Syria between 2017 and 2018. Officials did not have a centralized depository facility for dispensing the equipment, and no documentation was kept during the operation, according to the audit. Consequently, thousands of weapons, weapons parts and other military hardware were exposed to “loss and theft”, says the Pentagon report.

US pulled multiple ways in Syria as Islamic State recedes ... source

In December 2018, the DoD began planning for the safe, professional withdrawal of U.S. personnel from Syria while maintaining its efforts to defeat ISIS. For FY 2020, the DoD budget requested $300 million, including $173.2 million for weapons, ammunitions, vehicles, and other CTEF-S equipment, to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS. The FY 2020 DoD budget request states that equipping, sustaining, and enabling the VSO is critical to the DoD’s approach. The relationship between U.S. forces and the VSO relies heavily on the DoD’s ability to provide weapons, ammunitions, and equipment. Furthermore, the FY 2020 DoD budget request states that the VSO’s combat effectiveness, movement, and operational tempo are directly linked to U.S. support, including the provision of weapons, ammunition, and equipment.

The CTEF-S program provides equipment designated for Syria to support the VSO. From FY 2017 through FY 2018, Congress authorized a total of $930 million for the CTEF-S program to support the VSO. Of the $930 million, the DoD budget requested $715.8 million for weapons, ammunition, vehicles, or equipment for FYs 2017 and 2018.

Special Operations Joint Task Force–Operation Inherent Resolve (SOJTF-OIR), under Combined Joint Task Force–OIR (CJTF-OIR), is the primary accompany force in Syria that advises and assists the VSO. According to SOJTF-OIR personnel, SOJTF-OIR also manages the day-to-day operations of the CTEF-S program. Specifically, SOJTF-OIR personnel identify program requirements—including the VSO’s needs for CTEF-S equipment and weapons— coordinate with acquisition agencies, manage equipment distribution, and monitor divestment tracking and reporting for CTEF-S equipment, such as weapons, ammunition, or vehicles.

Personnel from 1st Theater Sustainment Command (1st TSC), under U.S. Army Central, told us that 1st TSC personnel account for and store CTEF-S equipment in Kuwait, accept the equipment once it arrives in Kuwait, then transport the equipment to the Building Partners Capacity (BPC) Kuwait warehouse. According to 1st TSC personnel, 1st TSC maintain a detailed inventory of all CTEF-S equipment at the BPC Kuwait warehouse and coordinate the movement of all CTEF-S equipment from the BPC Kuwait warehouse to storage sites closer to Syria. Personnel from 1st TSC indicated that CTEF-S equipment remains in U.S. Government possession while stored at the BPC Kuwait warehouse and storage sites closer to Syria. According to SOJTF-OIR personnel, Coalition units located throughout Syria work closely with the VSO to identify their current and future operational needs, such as weapons and vehicles. The VSO consists of DoD-approved Syrian opposition personnel who are dedicated to fighting ISIS throughout Syria. SOJTF-OIR personnel stated that Coalition units select, investigate, train, and equip these local Syrian forces to defeat ISIS. In addition, SOJTF-OIR personnel stated that Coalition units receive the CTEF-S equipment from the BPC Kuwait warehouse and divest CTEF-S equipment to the VSO. Once divested, ownership and accountability of CTEF-S equipment is transferred from the DoD to the VSO.

Finding

SOJTF-OIR personnel did not account for the budgeted $715.8 million of CTEF-S equipment for FYs 2017 and 2018 from procurement through divestment in accordance with DoD Instruction 5000.64 and Army Regulation 735-5. For example, SOJTF-OIR personnel did not maintain comprehensive lists of all equipment purchased and received. This occurred because SOJTF-OIR personnel allowed multiple entities involved with CTEF-S equipment to store records in numerous locations instead of designating a central repository for all supporting accountability documentation.

1st TSC personnel did not properly store or secure CTEF-S equipment at the BPC Kuwait warehouse in accordance with DoD guidance, Army regulations, or SOJTF-OIR standard operating procedures. For example, 1st TSC personnel stored weapons outside in metal shipping containers, exposing the equipment to harsh environmental elements, such as heat and humidity. This occurred because SOJTF-OIR personnel did not divest or dispose of CTEF-S equipment, which led to overcrowding at the BPC Kuwait warehouse. In addition, according to 1st TSC’s inventory records, 1st TSC personnel stored 4,144 Category II weapons (sensitive weapons), such as machine guns and grenade launchers, outside in metal shipping containers and not in a facility that met the requirement for storing Category II weapons.

For FY 2020, the DoD budget requested $173.2 million for weapons, ammunitions, vehicles, and other CTEF-S equipment. Without accurate accountability records, such as inventory records and hand receipts, SOJTF-OIR personnel could order equipment that SOJTF-OIR already has in stock, risking unnecessary spending of CTEF-S funds and further overcrowding the BPC Kuwait warehouse resulting in equipment being stored outside.

Furthermore, SOJTF-OIR and 1st TSC personnel left thousands of CTEF-S weapons and sensitive equipment items vulnerable to loss or theft. Without conducting consistent inventories and ensuring proper security for CTEF-S equipment, 1st TSC could not determine whether items were lost or stolen which could delay the initiation of an investigation.

Recommendations

We recommend that the Commander of SOJTF-OIR develop a central repository system for all documentation required to support CTEF-S equipment requested on the memorandum of requirement through the entire divestment process.

We recommend that the Commander of SOJTF-OIR develop guidance for the proper disposal of CTEF-S equipment stored at the BPC Kuwait warehouse that has been declared unserviceable.

Additionally, we recommend that the Commander of 1st TSC complete a physical security inspection periodically, but no less than every 18 months, and ensure corrective action is taken to fix new and existing security issues identified.

Management Comments and Our Response

During the audit, we advised SOJTF-OIR and 1st TSC of the deficiencies within the CTEF-S program for the accountability and security of CTEF-S equipment. SOJTF-OIR and 1st TSC personnel agreed with our findings and immediately initiated corrective actions. SOJTF-OIR personnel stated that SOJTF-OIR created a shared drive portal for all documentation for CTEF-S equipment from procurement through divestment, including memorandums of requirement, purchase orders, equipment received, inventories completed, hand receipts, transfers, and divestment packages. 1st TSC has already started providing its hand receipts and completed inventory documents to SOJTF-OIR for inclusion in the shared drive. As of January 2020, SOJTF-OIR is using this shared drive portal to store documentation for CTEF-S equipment, such as inventories, lateral transfers, and hand receipts. The actions taken addressed the specifics of Recommendation 1 to establish a central repository for all documentation required to support CTEF-S equipment requested on the memorandum of requirement through the entire divestment process; therefore, Recommendation 1 is closed.

On May 31, 2019, U.S. Central Command developed and began implementing a disposal plan for unserviceable equipment purchased for the VSO, including items stored at the BPC Kuwait warehouse. CJTF-OIR personnel stated that this plan will reduce the amount of CTEF-S equipment currently stored at the BPC Kuwait warehouse, and equipment will no longer need to be stored outside the warehouse exposed to the harsh elements. Furthermore, in November 2019, CJTF-OIR personnel confirmed that disposition guidance for unserviceable CTEF-S equipment was received from U.S. Central Command and that unserviceable CTEF-S equipment will be provided to the Defense Logistics Agency or disposed. The actions taken addressed the specifics of Recommendation 2 to develop guidance for the disposal of unserviceable equipment; therefore, Recommendation 2 is closed.

During our February 2019 followup site visit, the audit team verified that 1st TSC personnel had started taking corrective actions to address the security deficiencies on the issues the audit team identified during the initial site visit. The actions taken addressed the specifics of Recommendation 3 to complete a security inspection and address security issues; therefore, Recommendation 3 is closed.

This report is a result of Project No. D2019-D000RJ-0031.000

The World/Media Ignores Frozen to Death Syrian Children

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Anyone remember the war in Syria? Anyone? Does anyone report the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo and Idlib where bombing continues on schools and hospitals by Russia?
Anyone?
Turkey hold several Syrian refugee camps and since December yet another 1.0 Syrians have fled on foot or by riding on the back of flatbed trucks towards the Turkey/Syria border which is essentially closed.
Remember the refugee crisis a few years ago of millions flowing into Europe? It is about to happen again, Turkey and Jordan cant handle the current refugees much less another million. Are they just to die? This atrocity all belongs to Putin and Assad and Iranian militias.

Since Dec. 1, some 900,000 people have been uprooted by violence in Syria, according to the United Nations. Now, new satellite images give a sense of scale to that crisis.

Syrian troops and the Russian air force are attempting to retake the northwest province of Idlib, the last rebel-held province in Syria’s ongoing civil war. NPR’s Deb Amos reports the offensive has killed over a thousand civilians. Many others have sought shelter near the Turkish border, the U.N. says.

Photos collected by a commercial satellite company show the refugee camps that have popped up in and around three Syrian towns near the border.

The U.N. says the majority of those who have been displaced are women and children.

“They are traumatized and forced to sleep outside in freezing temperatures because camps are full,” U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock said Monday. “Mothers burn plastic to keep children warm. Babies and small children are dying because of the cold.”

Turkey has taken in about 3.5 million refugees. But the country says it’s at its limits.

The U.N.’s Lowcock is urging a cease-fire, saying it would be the only way to avert “the biggest humanitarian horror story of the 21st Century.” Satellite images found here.

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A father clutching his sick daughter says they’ve been on the road for two days trying to reach safety. Where is that? He points ahead. “The camp,” he says, before rushing off.
Once independent from each other, the camps along the border with Turkey have sprawled into a massive city of semi-permanent structures. More than one million people, displaced from nine years of fighting, already live in the ever-expanding camps, which provide some semblance of security even as the freezing temperatures take their toll.
Sitting in the corner of the family’s tent, Samiya recalls the night when temperatures dipped below freezing as the last of their fuel ran out. Her seven-month-old baby, Abdulwahab, was warm when she changed his diaper and fed him that evening before putting him to sleep for the night.
Just after dawn, she woke up to the screams of her older kids. Abdulwahab’s little body was as cold and gray as the cement their tent sits on.
“I touched him and he was icy,” Samiya said. The family doesn’t own a phone, so there are no photos of Abdulwahab alive. They rushed the boy to the closest doctor, who told them he died of the cold, according to Samiya.
“It’s a hard thing, for a mother to wake up and find her son dead … I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” she said. “I thought the children would be safe here.”

Conflict rumbles on

A short drive away, in a muddy makeshift camp near Sarmada, the conditions are miserable but a cheer goes up as people point to the sky and yell: “Regime aircraft down!”
In the distance there is an orange ball of fire falling through the sky, leaving a trail of black smoke as people look on, mesmerized.
It’s one Syrian government helicopter out of five that were in the air, and it’s been shot down by opposition fighters, according to activists from the area.
But it’s a small victory. Syrian government forces have captured most of the M5 highway that runs through the opposition-held area, which has shrunk to nearly half the size it was in 2018, when Turkey brokered a deal to set up military outposts to observe a ceasefire.
Back then it was called a de-escalation zone, but now schools and mosques have been converted into shelters, and families cram into tents as more relatives arrive. The physical claustrophobia is palpable, but it’s also psychological. More.
Once independent from each other, the camps along the border with Turkey have sprawled into a massive city of semi-permanent structures.