Putin’s Hidden Agents in ISIS

Posted on February 5, 2016February 5, 2016 by Denise Simon

It is about a global power-ranking. When Russia and Iran team up to destabilized Syria, refugees, millions of them flee. Destination for the refugees, The West. The West is forced to accommodate millions, pay for them, house them, educated them and provide medical care, breaking the financial structure. How come Russia has not taken any refugees or Iran or any country in the Middle East? They already know. Now the challenge for the West is to have aggressive leadership by the United States, not until 2017 will that be realized or will it?

The KGB/FSB has an agenda, it is well underway…..As you read below, submit your thoughts.

NewAmerican: On December 6, 2015, in a televised interview with the Ukrainian news program ТСН Тиждень (TSN Tyzhden, Ukrainian for TSN Weekly), a former FSB officer admitted that Russia is behind ISIS while ostensibly opposing it.

Former FSB officer codenamed “Yevgeniy” (shown, back toward camera) revealed that Russia’s FSB security services was, at the very least, complicit in the Paris attacks carried out by ISIS, and most shockingly that the FSB was involved in the creation of ISIS, which it influences through its agents who staff it as well as other related Islamic terrorist organizations.

The FSB, which stands for Federal Security Service in Russian, was organized in 1995 as the successor to the Soviet KGB. After the KGB was officially dissolved in 1991, it was briefly renamed the AFB (Agency for Federal Security), which was reorganized that same year as the MB (Ministry of Security). In 1993, the MB became the FSK (Federal Counter-Intelligence Service), which was again reorganized into its present form and name as the FSB on April 12, 1995.

Yevgeniy reportedly specialized in both terrorist organizations and counter-terrorism activities within the FSB. Defecting for personal reasons rather than ideological, Yevgeniy told TSN’s Andriy Tsaplienko that among the vast number of refugees entering Europe were certain Russian operatives whose task it was to infiltrate the Muslim communities. Financed by the FSB, these undercover Muslim operatives would rise to prominence within their respective communities, in turn providing the Kremlin with valuable intelligence of Muslim activates in Europe and allowing Moscow to exert influence over the communities. More here.

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WikiLeaks Forum:
Part one of this series looked at the historical manipulation of Islamists by Russian security services. Jihadists were armed and trained to fight by the FSB and GRU in places like Georgia and Nargono-Karabakh. Domestically, jihadists were infiltrated by the FSB into nationalist separatist movements in Dagestan and Chechnya, effectively painting those movements as religious radicals rather than freedom fighters battling an oppressive regime in Moscow.
Related Posts

Part two looked at a few specific examples of Chechen and Georgian jihadists who are probably witting or unwitting FSB assets, and how they have become power players within ISIS. The reasons for this are twofold and represent a re-creation of the same strategy used in Chechnya. Chechen jihadists helped to re-contextualize the Syrian rebels, Islamizing them in the world’s eyes. By doing this, they also acted as a spoiler force, preventing the CIA from being able to train and arm many Syrian rebels because of the presence of so many jihadi groups, a draw for many of the moderates in the region.
This article will take a look at ISIS propaganda, or what the world’s intelligence services would call information operations or psychological operations, and ask the question as to whether there is a hidden hand behind these propaganda videos.

Wahhabywood

The allure that ISIS holds for young jihadis and the fear they inspire in the rest of the world stems not from the actual combat prowess of the organization, but from its image. That image is carefully crafted, and much has been written about the high production values of the propaganda ISIS puts out. Their videos display dehumanized Islamic warriors in black masks, fully devoted to the cause of creating an Islamic caliphate. They never sleep, they never tire, they will conquer the entire world, bathing it in the blood of infidels and installing some kind of Muslim mojo hocus pocus 7th-century sharia law, or so we are told.

ISIS represents the darkest nightmares the Western world has about the Middle East, Arabs, and Muslims. The Islamic State represents a temporally displaced land of barbarians that has no place in the modern world. These nightmares are carefully cultivated by ISIS in slick propaganda films that show a deep awareness of liberal Western cultural values; the images and actions in these films are often specifically targeting Western audiences. ISIS’s reputation in the Middle East, much of it gained by way of their propaganda, is so profound, this author has been told that when an ISIS convoy rolls up to a village, all they need to do is blink their headlights and the locals will completely abandon their homes without a fight.

Their propaganda is good. Maybe too good.

ISIS propaganda targets Western liberal sensitivities in a very deliberate manner. There are many ways they do this, but four stand out quite clearly.

1. Mass executions, especially of Christians.
ISIS thrives on the blood bath of mass executions. No one is spared. Shia Muslims, children, ordinary civilians, so-called infidels and apostates, suspected traitors, Kurds, it hardly matters to ISIS. They are also known to carry out summary beheadings when they arrive in a village of the first person they can get their hands on just to prove that they are now in charge. However, it is the deliberate mass murder of Christians in Syria, Iraq, and Libya that is clearly designed to antagonize Western populations.

2. Sexual slavery
Openly flaunting sexual slavery is another propaganda point for ISIS, one that intentionally provokes Western values, but arguably human values across the world. Murder is one thing, but holding slave auctions in Mosul and selling off 13-year-old Yezidi girls or handing them out as gifts to ISIS fighters is particularly vile. ISIS is quite proud of this and brags about it in videos and public statements; their brand of sharia law also openly endorses it. This savage behavior deliberately provokes Westerners sensitive to gender issues.

3. Destruction of antiquities
The truth is that many Americans could care less about what happens in the Middle East. Arabs have been killing each other for hundreds of years and will continue to do so unabated. But even some of the most jaded people in the West get outraged at the destruction of antiquities. Following in the footsteps of the Taliban, who destroyed ancient Buddha statues, ISIS knows that their destruction of ancient Roman and Assyrian artifacts and structure will invite the ire of the world.

4. Targeting homosexuals
ISIS beheads and murders people at whim, but full-page spreads of professionally done photographs capturing ISIS tossing homosexual men from rooftops is something else entirely. Gay rights is an important issue in the West, and ISIS not only murders gays but makes sure that the entire world knows about it by recording these executions.
It is important to remember that none of these propaganda videos or pictures are released without permission from ISIS. We see what ISIS wants us to see. I am not cherry-picking the worst behavior of ISIS to present to our readers, I’m simply pointing out the images they want foremost in our minds. ISIS is baiting the Western world. Their end goal is also stated in the open: They want a coalition of Western nations to attack them.

Reflexive control

Reflexive control is a theory of psychological warfare designed to control enemy perceptions and has been studied and developed by Russian intelligence services for over 40 years. “Reflexive control is defined as a means of conveying to a partner or an opponent specially prepared information to incline him to voluntarily make the predetermined decision desired by the initiator of the action,” writes Timothy Thomas. Reflexive control involves studying the opposition’s decision-making process, then introducing socially, strategically, or politically loaded information into that process in order to influence it in a direction favorable to your objectives.

Russian defense analysts perceive America’s 1980s “Star Wars” or SDI program as a perfect example of reflexive control. According to the Russians, America knew that the USSR would respond to match horizontal and vertical proliferation of weapons, as well as the countermeasures to stop them. Therefore, America instituted the Star Wars program to trick the Soviet Union into investing in novel new weapons programs it could not afford, which then led to the crash of the Soviet economy. By doing this, we “compelled the enemy to act according to a plan favorable to the U.S.” (Thomas, 239).

By definition, reflexive control occurs when the controlling organ conveys (to the objective system) motives and reasons that cause it to reach the desired decision, the nature of which is maintained in strict secrecy. The decision itself must be made independently. A “reflex” itself involves the specific process of imitating the enemy’s reasoning or imitating the enemy’s possible behavior and causes him to make a decision unfavorable to himself (Thomas, 241).

In other words, once you understand how the enemy thinks, you then feed him information you know will cause him to reach an independent decision favoring your own strategy. In essence, you are using deception to trick the enemy, hoping that they will blunder into something that they wouldn’t attempt if they knew that they were being presented with loaded, and potentially false, information. While we are focused on Russian stratagems here, it may also be useful to reflect back of the deception tactics used by China as well, many of them derived from the period of the Warring States.

ISIS feeds the West loaded information

There is no proof that Russian intelligence has a hand in ISIS information/propaganda operations. However, considering what we have discussed thus far, this scenario should be taken seriously. ISIS is actively gaming the psychological makeup of Western audiences in order to provoke the United States and allied nations into a full-blown military confrontation with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. If the hypothesis about Russian influence agents in ISIS is correct, and if they are participating in ISIS propaganda efforts, then we should ask why Russia would be interested in doing this to begin with.

The answer is fairly straightforward. Keeping America bogged down and preoccupied in the Middle East is of massive benefit to the Russian Federation. By goading America into another war in the Middle East, Russia has more opportunity to engage in military aggression in Ukraine, Dagestan, Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, Akbazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and on and on throughout Russia’s near abroad. For sure, there would also be some more specific tactical and strategic goals, but in the general sense, the Gulf War III would help keep America off Russia’s back.

ISIS, and perhaps Russian intelligence, understands America’s future rationalizations for war very well. In the past we could justify war as being battles against communism or fascism for the preservation of the American way of life. Before that, more jingoistic narratives about manifest destiny were brought into play. But these justifications for war, racial or nationalistic, will have no place in future liberal Western nations. Instead wars will be justified as fights for gay rights, women’s rights, and other equality issues. One hypothetical example: Americans will be told that we have to invade Iran because gays are stoned to death or beheaded by the Iranian regime.

The Islamic State knows that there is no better way to terrify and incite Americans than to use mass executions, the murder of Christians, the use of sex slaves, the destruction of ancient relics, and the killing of homosexuals. ISIS is at war with Western consciousness, and it is a very deliberate effort.

Basically, we see Daesh, we see the Islamic State — especially in the West — we see it from the surface, which is the mix of their propaganda; their version of what they really do. You see the pictures of actual killings, slaughtering, beheadings, blowing up things, mixed with their propaganda, or mixed with the things which are not true. They are controlling whatever comes out of their area. For example, if you take the pictures and the images we have of the Islamic State, 99% are approved by their PR department. They give us pictures of all these lined-up Humvees, guys with guns, perfect afternoon light set in the desert. They have accepted the presence of a few photographers who are in the area, from AFP, Reuters, AP; the big agencies, no matter if they would be considered Zionists, masons, imperialists, infidel agencies — they are in their area and they had to swear allegiance and in most cases the office is directly controlling all the images before they are permitted to submit them or it’s made clear to them. They sort of tell them, ‘if you do something wrong which harms our reputation, you know what will happen to you. We know you; we will find you.’ So the images that are transferred through the agencies, all the big agencies, are images that have been approved by Daesh. And Daesh invites the photographers to their events.—Christoph Reuters

None of this proves that this effort is being led, sponsored by, or covertly influenced by Russian intelligence assets. ISIS seems quite capable of hiring contractors with technical expertise, from oil industry engineers to computer hackers. Also, it is not as hard to make professional-looking films as it was 10 or 20 years ago. A kid with a decent digital camera and a laptop with film-editing software can do a pretty good job at filmmaking. Perhaps ISIS has developed all of this methodology on their own, but I am far from the first person to be surprised by ISIS’s slick Madison Avenue-worthy propaganda.

There are far more questions than answers here. For example, what about the Baath party leadership cells that actually run ISIS? These old dogs are not suicidal by any means and are actually quite cunning. A coalition of Western states spearheading a third Gulf War seems like it would be counterproductive to their goals. Yet, it would be impossible to believe that a few influence agents within ISIS have completely hijacked their propaganda efforts away from the Baathists. Maybe they are getting something in return? One can only speculate. While the first two parts of this article give some solid evidence for the reader to ponder, part three is an extrapolation on the first two articles. We don’t know if Russian intelligence has a hand in ISIS propaganda.

Justice Dept. Refuses to Comply With Court Order

Posted on February 4, 2016February 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

The excuses are stupid…

Justice Dept. Fights Subpoenas for Bank Records About Russian Assets

Zoe Tillman, The National Law Journal

Visitors look through books before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the library of the Schneerson family of Hasidic rabbis in the Jewish Museum in Moscow, Thursday, June 13, 2013. The vast collection of Jewish books and documents is the focus of a dispute between Moscow and Washington.

Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Updated at 1:10 p.m.

The U.S. Department of Justice is fighting efforts by a Jewish group to subpoena banks for information about assets owned by the Russian Federation, which owes more than $43 million in sanctions for rebuffing a U.S. judge’s order to return a collection of religious texts.

In papers filed on Wednesday night, the Justice Department warned that allowing lawyers for Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the United States to subpoena information about Russian assets from five financial institutions—JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Computershare—could harm U.S. foreign policy interests. The subpoenas seek information about accounts that belong to the Russian government and to individuals, including President Vladimir Putin.

“Such efforts are antithetical to the goal of securing the return of the collection to Chabad, open the doors to reciprocal measures being taken against the United States by Russia, and would be out of step with international practice such that they could cause considerable friction with other foreign governments,” the Justice Department wrote.

The U.S. government supports Chabad’s claim to the Schneerson Collection—more than 12,000 books and manuscripts seized in Russia in the early 20th century, and 25,000 pages of texts stolen by the Nazis and then taken as war loot by the Soviet Red Army. Chabad has fought in court for the return of the collection for more than a decade. The Russian government stopped participating in the litigation in 2009.

The Justice Department has opposed efforts by Chabad’s lawyers to pursue Russian assets to force compliance with a 2010 court ruling that ordered Russia to return the collection to Chabad.

Steven Lieberman, a partner at Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck and a lead attorney for Chabad, said in a joint statement with lawyers from Lewin & Lewin in Washington that the Justice Department was “simply trying to re-litigate an issue it has already lost.”

“We are reviewing the government’s position, and we will consider asking [the judge] to take appropriate steps to ensure that our efforts to identify Russian assets will proceed without further interference,” Lieberman said. “However, it is shocking that the Departments of Justice and State now appear to be representing Russian interests more aggressively than their private counsel ever did.”

In 2013, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington—over the Justice Department’s objections—entered a civil contempt order against Russia that included a fine of $50,000 per day. In September 2015, Lamberth entered a judgment for Chabad for $43.7 million, the sanctions total at the time.

With the judgment on record, Chabad’s lawyers ramped up their search for Russian assets in the United States. They subpoenaed the five financial institutions in December.

The Justice Department argues that even with Lamberth’s sanctions order in place, the court wouldn’t be allowed under federal law to actually enforce it. And if the court can’t enforce its order, the government said, Chabad shouldn’t be allowed to subpoena information or otherwise use the court system to investigate Russian assets that it can’t attach.

“The sanctions judgment at issue here … while resulting from Russia’s noncompliance with a default judgment ordering it to return certain property to Chabad, does not in and of itself grant any property rights to Chabad. Instead, it simply sanctions Russia for its noncompliance with the court’s specific performance order,” the Justice Department wrote.

In a Feb. 2 letter included in the government’s court papers from Katherine McManus, deputy legal adviser at the U.S. Department of State, to Justice Department Civil Division Principal Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Mizer, McManus wrote that the Chabad case had already created diplomatic problems.

“For several years, senior Russian officials have regularly raised this litigation with their U.S. counterparts. They have done so more frequently, and at higher levels, since the issuance of the district court’s sanctions order,” McManus wrote. The sanctions order and efforts to enforce it would only hurt efforts to negotiate the return of the Schneerson Collection, she added.

More broadly, the Justice Department said in its court papers that if Chabad were allowed to conduct “sweeping discovery” into Russian assets, it would create “friction” with other foreign governments and risk similar orders being entered against the United States abroad. The U.S. last year was granted immunity from contempt sanctions in a Spanish court, the Justice Department noted.

“Any constraint placed on property of the Russian entities named in the subpoenas in the context of this case would isolate the United States in the international community and raise doubts about the United States’ respect for other foreign sovereigns,” the government argued.

Updated with comment from Chabad’s lawyers.

Homs. Syria: Today

Posted on February 4, 2016February 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

Context: New York City in 2014 had an estimated population of 8.49 million. Today in Syria, 11 million people have fled the country. Starvation is everywhere.

Iran and Russia have been long time friends with Bashir al Assad and both rogue countries continue to prop up Assad.

Every world leader is responsible for this and to blame. 5 years of Bashir al Assad, years of Islamic State, years of al Nusra. Russia continues to bomb those fighting against the Assad regime with wild abandon. This is 2016, how can a modern day holocaust be so real. No one can fully estimate the death tolls, 200,000 or 500,000?

What are the prospects for anyone to ever return? How can this be rebuilt?

Homs: Homs did not emerge into the historical record until the 1st century BCE at the time of the Seleucids. It later became the capital of a kingdom ruled by the Emesani dynasty who gave the city its name. Originally a center of worship for the sun god El-Gabal, it later gained importance in Christianity under the Byzantines. Homs was conquered by the Muslims in the 7th century and made capital of a district that bore its current name. Throughout the Islamic era, Muslim dynasties contending for control of Syria sought after Homs due to the city’s strategic position in the area. Homs began to decline under the Ottomans and only in the 19th century did the city regain its economic importance when its cotton industry boomed. During French Mandate rule, the city became a center of insurrection and, after independence in 1946, a center of Baathist resistance to the first Syrian governments.

Published on Feb 3, 2016

Large parts of Syria are reduced almost entirely to rubble after five years of civil war.

As attitudes and policies towards refugees harden across Europe, a video has emerged that exposes the utter devastation Syrians are fleeing from.

Revealing in detail the consequences of the country’s five-year civil war, the drone footage shows the piles of rubble ruined buildings that Homs – previously Syria’s third largest city – has been reduced to.

While the video reflects the utter desolation in a city that was once home to more than 650,000 people, peace talks aimed at ending hostilities remain frustratingly unproductive.
The video that shows the Syrian peace talks cannot come soon enough
Arguments over who should or should not attend the negotiations overshadowed the continuous damage wrought in a war that has seen over 11 million Syrians flee, more than half the country’s entire population.

The video was shot by Alexander Pushin, a cameraman for Russian state television.

While his drone footage from Syria has been described as propaganda designed to promote Russia’s military involvement in the country, the startling scale of devastation it exposes is beyond question.
Even as news emerged of nine people who died attempting to reach the relative safe haven of Europe, anti-refugee sentiment appears to be growing across the continent.

Denmark recently introduced legislation that permits the seizing of refugees’ valuables, which drew comparisons to the treatment of Jews by Nazi Germany.
Sweden is rejecting applications from 80,000 people who sought asylum in the Scandinavian country last year, while Finland also intends to expel 20,000 of the 32,000 applications received in 2015.

Angela Merkel announced recently that Syrian refugees would be expected to return to the Middle East once the conflict is over, while British Prime Minister David Cameron dismissed those living in the squalor of Calais’ “Jungle” as “a bunch of migrants”.

Starting in 2011, the ongoing conflict in Syria pitches Bashar al Assad’s regime – aided by Russia – against a multitude of different and competing factions, including Islamist group Isis and associated militias.

The language of a continent that once appeared to welcome refugees no longer appears so accommodating, despite the evidently dire situation in Homs, Damascus and other Syrian cities reduced to ruins over the last five years.

Epic Chinese Hacking is Forecasted

Posted on February 4, 2016February 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

In 2015: Washington (CNN) A highly trained group of Chinese hackers is targeting defense, commercial and political organizations worldwide, pulling off sophisticated heists of sensitive information, according to new research out Wednesday.

Though Chinese cyberespionage has been well-documented, researchers from Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit — a division of Dell tech company — say this group, nicknamed Emissary Panda by another research firm, has pulled off cyberattacks at a level of sophistication and specialization rarely seen before among Chinese hackers. More here.

Security Firm Warns of
New Chinese Cyber Attacks

CrowdStrike: Russia, North Korea also engaged in cyber theft

FreeBeacon: China’s cyber attacks against U.S. government and private sector databases are part of a major intelligence-gathering operation and are likely to continue, according to a new report by a cyber security firm.

Chinese hackers stole health care data pertaining to some 80 million Americans last year, and the Office of Personnel Management cyber attacks netted sensitive records on 22 million federal workers, according to an annual threat report made public Wednesday by CrowdStrike, a cyber security and intelligence company. The company is widely consulted by both government and private sector organizations.

The gathering of personal data by the Chinese represents a new trend in Beijing’s aggressive cyber attacks.

“This targeting underscores that intrusion operations associated with nation-states pose a significant risk to all data, no matter how uninteresting it may seem,” the report said.

The 49-page “2015 Global Threat Report” also states that the U.S.-China agreement not to conduct commercial cyber theft has had little impact on Beijing’s cyber operations.

“Beneath the surface, however, China has not appeared to change its intentions where cyber is concerned,” the report said.

Any reduction in Chinese cyber attacks this year likely will be temporary, and an apparent reduction may result from the use of more clandestine methods for conducting attacks following a major military reorganization.

The military changes “will likely increase [China’s] reliance on its civilian intelligence agencies and associated contractors, all of which generally employ better tradecraft,” the report said.

“If observed campaigns in late 2015 were any indication, it is unlikely China will completely cease its cyber operations, and 2016 will show the new direction it is headed,” the report said.

More cyber attacks seeking personal data could take place in the future, and organizations that hold such data “should remain alert to the possibility of similar activity going into 2016,” the report said.

China’s cyber spies usually use cyber intrusions to steal strategic information, such as intellectual property, business operations data, and sensitive government documents.

Stolen personal data, on the other hand, “is typically used to facilitate identity theft or other types of financially motivated crimes,” the report said.

However, the compromised personal information from health insurance companies Anthem, Premera, and CareFirst last year could be used by the government or state-run companies.

The large data theft also appears to be part of Chinese efforts to “build out profiles on individuals to support future operations.”

The federal government data breaches were more damaging and included sensitive background investigation information on federal employees, the report said.

“Without doubt, access to this degree of [personally identifiable information] for both successful and unsuccessful applicants represents a treasure trove of information that may be exploited for counterintelligence purposes,” the report said.

The Chinese can now exploit millions of stolen records for intelligence operations.

“Knowledge acquired during these operations could be used to create more individualized, and therefore more effective, spear phishing campaigns, or also in more traditional, real-world espionage activity,” the report said, noting that the background investigation data “would be particularly useful to traditional [human intelligence] operations as it contains details of a very personal nature about current and former government employees, as well as private sector employees working on government contracts.”

The Chinese government, through the Ministry of Public Security, has launched a major domestic campaign to crack down on online dissent. The Ministry is conducting cyber operations against people and websites that post information opposed by communist authorities, including use of an offensive cyber security force called the “Great Cannon,” a supplement to the Great Firewall designed to block online users from accessing unapproved content.

In Russia, hackers linked to the government used malicious software for intelligence-gathering and for political coercion, such as against Ukraine. Moscow hackers also have conducted cyber reconnaissance—preparation of the cyber battlefield—in Europe and elsewhere.

“In February, widespread spear phishing … was detected and analyzed,” the report said. “These attacks targeted numerous entities in government, defense, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America.”

Russian hackers used stolen emails from a hack against the U.S. strategic consulting firm Stratfor, the report said, a tactic not typical of Russian hacking in the past.

International pressure on Moscow over its military activities, such as the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea “portend increased intelligence collection by Russia-based adversaries particularly against regional targets and global energy companies,” the report said.

A Russian cyber intelligence operation, dubbed Berserk Bear, targeted oil and gas companies in the Middle East. Another operation, called Fancy Bear, targeted Chinese defense firms.

One Russian hacker group called CyberBerkut operating in Ukraine appears linked to Russian intelligence services.

North Korean cyber activities last year principally involved intelligence-gathering operations directed against South Korea.

Pressure from China could prompt Pyongyang to take a more aggressive cyber posture. And North Korean cyber activities also could expand into criminal activities to raise money for the regime, the report said.

Iran is expected to step up cyber attacks against Saudi Arabia. Regional tensions “increase the likelihood that Iran would use its proven cyber capabilities in 2016, targeting Saudi Arabia and regional governments that are becoming involved in the two countries’ dispute by choosing to align with Saudi Arabia.”

The report names more than 70 cyber adversaries and divides them into three types of attackers: Target intruders, such as nation states, cyber criminals, and “hacktivists.”

For cyber crime, attacks on banks and the use of ransom schemes increased during 2015.

“Phishing emails continued to dominate crimeware distribution throughout the year as the primary mechanism used for the aforementioned banking Trojans and ransomware threats,” the report said.

So-called hacktivist activities including politically motivated cyber attacks by groups like the Syrian Electronic Army and pro-ISIS hackers.

Several pro-Iranian hacker groups also were active last year, including Parastoo, Remember EMAD, and SOBH Cyber Jihad.

The group Remember EMAD—named after the Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyah who was killed in a Damascus car bomb in 2009—claimed to have penetrated Pentagon networks and then threatened to release stolen data. No data was ever released.

ISIS hacking was very active last year and included campaigns of web defacement, the release of personal data—known as “doxing”—and the hijacking of social media accounts.

Russia’s Beachhead Syria, Serbia and Baltics?

Posted on February 3, 2016February 3, 2016 by Denise Simon

New Russian beachhead in Syria

WashingtonTimes: U.S. intelligence agencies are closely watching what appears to be a buildup of Russian military forces in northeastern Syria, very close to the Turkish border.

The buildup has been underway for the past several weeks, and defense officials say there are concerns Moscow is creating a new military air base and outpost similar to the current base near Latakia, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

Defense officials said there are indications the Russians are planning to deploy their most advanced air defense weapons, the S-400, at Qamishli, located very close to the Turkish border. Russian-Turkish relations soured in November after Turkish forces shot down a Russian Su-24 jet that strayed into Turkish airspace.

The London Times reported last month that some 200 Russians were fortifying a runway at the Qamishli air base.

The report prompted the Russian Defense Ministry to deny Moscow planned to deploy air forces at the base.

“There are no ‘new’ air bases or additional pre-strike staging ports for Russian warplanes in the territory of [the] Syrian Arab Republic, and there are no plans to create them,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told the Interfax news agency.

The Russian activity at Qamishli has set off alarms in Turkey, a NATO ally, with fears the Russians are preparing to conduct threatening operations against Turkey in retaliation for the downing of the Su-24, which led to the death of one of the two crew members and a member of the Russian team sent to rescue the downed crew.

Russia denied the jet violated Turkish airspace and said it would retaliate against the Turks for the incident.

Turkey then announced Jan. 30 that another Russian jet violated Turkish airspace, prompting another denial from Moscow.

An Israeli think tank, The Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, this week published photos of the Russian military buildup at Latakia. The photos reveal deployments of over 30 warplanes, including 11 of the supersonic Su-24 bombers. Additionally, the photos show 10 Su-25s and seven advanced Su-35s.

Defense officials say the Russian airstrikes in Syria are aimed primarily at anti-regime rebels with only limited strikes against the Islamic State terrorist group.

The S-400 batteries also are visible in the photos along with Pantsir SA-22 missiles.

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Serbia and Russia

Moscow confirms: Serbia wants Russian missiles and warplanes

Serbia is interested in buying Russian air defense systems Tor, Pantsir, and Buk, as well as MiG-29 warplanes, Sputnik is reporting.

Belgrade showed interest in this after Croatia announced it planned to buy American weapons, a representative of the Russian Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation said.

“We are considering the issue of delivering air defense systems and MiG-29s to Serbia. That country is our strategic partner in Europe in many spheres, including military-technical cooperation,” the source said.

It was stated on January 15 that in the wake of Croatia’s announced plans to buy MGM-140 ATACMS missiles, Serbia became interested in Russian air defense systems and jets.

If Russia Started a War in the Baltics, NATO Would Lose — Quickly

FP: If Russian tanks and troops rolled into the Baltics tomorrow, outgunned and outnumbered NATO forces would be overrun in under three days. That’s the sobering conclusion of war games carried out by a think tank with American military officers and civilian officials.

“The games’ findings are unambiguous: As currently postured, NATO cannot successfully defend the territory of its most exposed members,” said a report by the RAND Corp., which led the war gaming research.

In numerous tabletop war games played over several months between 2014-2015, Russian forces were knocking on the doors of the Estonian capital of Tallinn or the Latvian capital of Riga within 36 to 60 hours. U.S. and Baltic troops — and American airpower — proved unable to halt the advance of mechanized Russian units and suffered heavy casualties, the report said.

The study argues that NATO has been caught napping by a resurgent and unpredictable Russia, which has begun to boost defense spending after having seized the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine and intervened in support of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine. In the event of a potential Russian incursion in the Baltics, the United States and its allies lack sufficient troop numbers, or tanks and armored vehicles, to slow the advance of Russian armor, said the report by RAND’s David Shlapak and Michael Johnson.

“Such a rapid defeat would leave NATO with a limited number of options, all bad,” it said.

The United States and its NATO allies could try to mount a bloody counter-attack that could trigger a dramatic escalation by Russia, as Moscow would possibly see the allied action as a direct strategic threat to its homeland. A second option would be to take a page out of the old Cold War playbook, and threaten massive retaliation, including the use of nuclear weapons. A third option would be to concede at least a temporary defeat, rendering NATO toothless, and embark on a new Cold War with Moscow, the report said.

However, the war games also illustrated there are preemptive steps the United States and its European allies could take to avoid a catastrophic defeat and shore up NATO’s eastern defenses, while making clear to Moscow that there would no easy victory.

A force of about seven brigades in the area, including three heavy armored brigades, and backed up by airpower and artillery, would be enough “to prevent the rapid overrun of the Baltic states,” it said. The additional forces would cost an estimated $2.7 billion a year to maintain.

The report was released Tuesday, the same day Defense Secretary Ash Carter unveiled plans to add more heavy weapons and armored vehicles to prepositioned stocks in Eastern Europe to give the Pentagon two brigade sets worth of heavy equipment on NATO’s eastern frontier. As it stands now, there are two U.S. Army infantry brigades stationed in Europe — one in Italy and the other in Germany — but they have been stretched thin by the constant demands of training rotations with allies across the continent. The new $3.4 billion plan outlined by Carter and the White House would add another brigade to the mix, but it would be made up of soldiers from the United States, rotating in for months at a time.

Late last month, Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of U.S. European Command, released a new strategy anticipating — and pushing back against — the call for more rotational forces. Flying troops in and out of the region “complements” the units who call Europe home, he wrote, but they’re no “substitute for an enduring forward deployed presence that is tangible and real. Virtual presence means actual absence.”

David Ochmanek from the RAND Corp., a former senior Pentagon official who has studied the challenge posed by Russia’s military, called the administration’s budget proposal for European forces an important step and an “encouraging sign.”

“Heavy armored equipment, pre-positioned forward, is the sine qua non of a viable deterrent and defense posture on the alliance’s eastern flank,” Ochmanek told Foreign Policy. But he said much more needed to be done to strengthen NATO’s defenses.

The findings from the war games will be warmly welcomed by senior officers in the U.S. Army, who have struggled to justify the cost of maintaining a large ground force amid budget pressures in recent years and a preference for lighter footprints. And the report will reinforce warnings from top military leaders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, that Russia may represent the number one threat to U.S. interests.

In early 2012, the Obama administration announced the withdrawal of two heavy brigades and their equipment from Germany, cutting deeply into the U.S. Army’s traditional, large footprint on the continent. Since then, the service has been slowly trying to move some hardware back into Germany for use in training exercises with NATO partners. Last year, U.S. Marines also began to roll a small number of Abrams tanks into Romania for a series of exercises with local forces.

Since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine sparked alarm in Eastern Europe, the United States has repeatedly vowed to defend Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the event of an attack, citing its mutual defense obligations under the NATO alliance. In a September 2014 speech in Tallinn, President Barack Obama made an explicit promise to protect the Baltic countries.

“We’ll be here for Estonia. We will be here for Latvia. We will be here for Lithuania. You lost your independence once before. With NATO, you will never lose it again,” Obama said.

But the RAND report said “neither the United States nor its NATO allies are currently prepared to back up the president’s forceful words.”

The borders that the three Baltic countries — all former Soviet republics — share with Russia and Belarus are about the same length as the one that separated West Germany from the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. But in that era, NATO stationed a massive ground force along the frontier with more than 20 divisions bristling with tanks and artillery.

Tanks are few and far between now in NATO countries, the report said. Germany’s arsenal of about 2,200 main battle tanks in the Cold War has declined to roughly 250. Britain, meanwhile, is planning on pulling out its last brigade headquarters left on the continent.

With only light infantry units at the ready in the Baltics, U.S. and NATO planners are also worried about the continued Russian arms buildup in the exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast between Poland and Lithuania, and Moscow’s intention to build a new air force base in Belarus, just south of the Polish-Lithuanian border.

The war games run by RAND underscored how U.S. and NATO forces lack the vehicles and firepower to take on their Russian adversaries, which have maintained more mechanized and tank units. NATO ground troops also lacked anti-aircraft artillery to fend off Russian warplanes in the Baltic scenario.

“By and large, NATO’s infantry found themselves unable even to retreat successfully and were destroyed in place,” the report said.

In the war games, although U.S. and allied aircraft could inflict damage on the invading Russian forces, they also were forced to devote attention to suppressing Russia’s dense air defenses and defending against Russian air attacks on rear areas.

Although it was unclear if deploying more troops and armor would be enough to discourage Russia from gambling on an attack in the Baltics, NATO’s current weak position clearly did not pose a persuasive deterrent, the report said.

By undertaking “due diligence” and bolstering NATO’s defenses, the alliance would send “a message to Moscow of serious commitment and one of reassurance to all NATO members and to all U.S. allies and partners worldwide,” it said.