Category Archives: Russia

The Hillary Email Server Scandal Runs Deeper at State Dept.

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The Hillary email scandal-palooza began on July 31 with Judge Sullivan’s declaration demanding Hillary and her staff certify certain conditions with regard to all the emails being turned over to the State Department.

On August 8, 2015, Hillary signed a certification document under penalty of perjury that all materials within server communications have been provided to the State Department. Concurrent to this action, the FBI visited the Denver IT company, Platt River that provided email support and redundant systems to the Hillary server established in her home in 2009. Of note, this server was NOT Bill’s server as she previously stated.

The two page certification signed by Hillary is found here.

Most important to readers here is the fact that the communications of the two emails in question that originated from the CIA were transmitted via a controlled pathway to the State Department, from there, someone(s) at State had to find a unclassified printer and computer to create hard copies, re-format them into electronic form and then email them to Hillary meaning that others at State are surely going to be investigated and caught up in the web or dragnet of culpability.

A 7 page email document chain is found here where the classified material is simply chilling.

On August 11, the Intelligence Community Inspector General briefed several members of the Senate as well as James Clapper, the Director of the Office of National Intelligence on the exact classifications of at least 2 newly discovered emails, which at the time of transmission were given the classification rating of TS/SI/TK/NF. This classification is the top confidential rating designation. Of particular note is the ‘TK’ rating which means Talent Keyhole, stemming from signals intelligence/geo-spatial via the CIA. These communications are only done on highly controlled systems and within a SCIF system.

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Senator Chuck Grassley took the aggressive and positive step on August 11 to provide voters with the new information noted here.

From Associated Press dates August 11:

Also Tuesday, Kendall gave to the Justice Department three thumb drives containing copies of work-related emails sent to and from her personal email addresses via her private server.

Kendall gave the thumb drives, containing copies of roughly 30,000 emails, to the FBI after the agency determined he could not remain in possession of the classified information contained in some of the emails, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The State Department previously had said it was comfortable with Kendall keeping the emails at his Washington law office.

Word that Clinton had relented on giving up possession of the server came as Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said two emails that traversed Clinton’s personal system were deemed “Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information” — a rating that is among the government’s highest classifications. Grassley said the inspector general of the nation’s intelligence community had reported the new details about the higher classification to Congress on Tuesday.

“Secretary Clinton’s previous statements that she possessed no classified information were patently untrue,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. “Her mishandling of classified information must be fully investigated.”

Those two emails were among four that had previously been determined by the inspector general of the intelligence community to have been classified at the time they were sent. The State Department disputes that the emails were classified at that time.

Shin Bet’s Latest Hamas Captive Reveals the Plan

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Jerusalem Post: A Hamas fighter and tunnel digger has given his interrogators in Israel a bevy of intelligence about the group’s recent tunnel construction, planned attacks on Israel, battlefield strategy, and military cooperation with Iran, the Shin Bet General Security Service said Tuesday, after news of the operative’s arrest was made public.

The fighter, Ibrahim Adal Shahada Sha’ar, a 21-year-old native of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, was arrested by the Shin Bet and the Israel Police last month at Erez Crossing on the Israel border, after he arrived at the installation to submit an application to enter Israel. An official with the Shin Bet said that Sha’ar’s application to enter was for “personal or humanitarian reasons” and that officers at the crossing knew who he was and arrested him on the spot.

The Shin Bet on Tuesday said Sha’ar gave up to his interrogators a trove of intelligence relating to Hamas operations in Gaza and in Rafah in particular, including about their plans to use tunnels along the border to carry out attacks on Israel, like they did with brutal effectiveness during last summer’s Operation Protective Edge.

The Shin Bet said Sha’ar also gave details about Hamas battlefield strategy, the make-up and capabilities of their “elite” infantry unit, as well as the anti-aircraft and surveillance capabilities of the Hamas armed wing.

Sha’ar himself took part in a series of battlefield tasks during last summer’s war, the Shin Bet said, including field logistics, and transporting fighters and firearms on the battlefield. He also admitted to laying an anti-tank IED on one occasion.

The Rafah native had allegedly been spending recent months working on tunnel construction, during which he learned of tunnels heading for the Kerem Shalom crossing on the Israel border, potentially for use in an infiltration attack. Under questioning he also gave up the location of digging sites, tunnel openings, and the routes of tunnels currently under construction in the Gaza Strip. He also reportedly told his interrogators that a road recently built by Hamas along the Gaza border with Israel is meant in part to be used for attacks on Israel, during which vehicles will use the road to charge across the border.

He also reportedly gave details on his observations about the military cooperation between Hamas and Iran. The Shin Bet said he described how they transfer money to the organization and supply firearms and electronics, including devices meant for jamming radio frequencies, meant to be used to take down Israeli drones flying over Gaza. He also observed how they attempted to train Hamas fighters in the use of hang gliders for attacks on Israel.

On July 31st, Sha’ar was indicted at the Beersheba District Court on charges of membership in an illegal organization, attempted murder, and contact with a foreign agent, and taking part in illegal military training.

***  Then we need to go back to John Kerry’s testimony before Congress, where his answers turn out to be thin on substance and essentially false and uninformed.

Iran Funding Hamas Preparations for War

 

When asked repeatedly by Republicans about Iran’s repeated threats to destroy Israel during Congressional testimony about the Iran nuclear deal, Secretary of State John Kerry sighed and looked at his questioners the way an exasperated teacher regards dumb students. Yes, he admitted, they say that but he explained patiently, he’s seen no evidence of them planning anything to put that into effect. Kerry repeated that answer, though no doubt without the look of disdain on his face, to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg saying “I haven’t seen anything that says to me” that their “ideological confrontation with Israel at this moment” [my emphasis] will “translate into active steps.” For all intents and purposes, President Obama says the same thing when he dismisses threats to Israel from Iran’s Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei even if he just published a book outlining his plans.

But, as Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency made public today, Iran is taking active steps toward war with Israel. The Israelis revealed that information obtained from a prisoner as well as from other sources showed that Iran is taking an active role in allowing Hamas to rebuild its military infrastructure as well as terror tunnels aimed at facilitating murder and kidnapping. Though the administration pretends that its negotiations with Iran are proof that the Islamist regime is moderating, evidence on the ground shows that its role as the world’s leading state sponsor of terror is unchanged. So, too, is its role in aiding the ongoing war on Israel’s existence.

As Haaretz reports:

During his interrogation, [Hamas operative Ibrahim] Sha’er also told of the links between Iran and Hamas, under which Iran has transferred military support into the Gaza Strip to strengthen the organization. The Iranians provide funds, advanced weaponry and electronic equipment such as equipment for disrupting radio communications to bring down Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles over Gaza, Sha’er told the Shin Bet. Iran has also trained Gaza fighters in the use of hang gliders for the purpose of penetrating into Israel, he said.

Perhaps to Obama and Kerry, these efforts should be considered minor annoyances to Israel. After all, what possible impact can terror attacks or giving Hamas the ability to wage and sustain a new war against Israel have to do with Israel’s existence? The Israeli military is strong and presumably is capable of dealing with anything that Hamas can come up with. Perhaps, the same is true of Hezbollah, which even Kerry admitted to Goldberg, had 80,000 rockets pointed at Israel.

The point is that Iran using its wealth and military know-how to build up Hezbollah (which operates as an Iranian surrogate, even sending its fighters into Syria to bolster Iran’s ally Bashar Assad) and now Hamas isn’t a mere detail to be swept under the rug. Nor is it tangential to the main thrust of Iranian foreign policy, as Khamenei’s new book makes plain.

Moreover, despite the administration’s blind faith in a shift in Iran’s policies once the nuclear deal is put into effect, there’s no evidence that the flood of cash into Tehran’s coffers will do anything but encourage it to continue its efforts to have its terrorist auxiliaries wage war on Israel.

To the contrary, once the deal sneaks through Congress and Obama begins the process of suspending sanctions by executive order and the Europeans begin a Tehran gold rush, the incentive to regard violations of any of the understandings as too minor to provoke a break will be too great. Kerry may speak of snapping back sanctions, but it’s clear the will to do so on the part of the West will be lacking.

That means that not only will Iran spend the next decade preparing for building its own bomb. It will also spend that time employing its wealth in its struggle for regional hegemony, a key part of which is its surrogate war on Israel. Once the deal expires, Hamas and Hezbollah won’t just be increasingly annoying Israel with deadly terror funded by Iran. They’ll then have a nuclear umbrella. At best, Israel — and moderate Arab states — will live under a terrible threat. The worst-case scenario is too awful to contemplate.

That means that contrary to Kerry’s belief about Iran having no plans in place to eliminate Israel, the entire process that will unfold from the deal is part and parcel of just such a plan. The only difference is that unlike past efforts, what will follow will happen while it has become America’s diplomatic and business partner. That is more than enough reason for anyone who cares about U.S. security, its interests in the Middle East and Israel’s survival, to rethink the deal.

 

Advances and Secret Information on Hacking of Classified Systems

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Hacking never has the sizzle when it comes to terror or scandals, yet it is the cheapest and most effective means of destruction.

So, below are some items you cannot overlook.

A few weeks ago, the unclassified email and information system at the Pentagon, mostly used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff was taken offline due to suspicious malware activity. That system is back online as of this week after all clues pointed to the hack by Russians which led to up to 4000 Pentagon employees losing access to email.

***

Then it has been determined the Chinese have accessed top government officials private emails since 2010.

Chinese hackers have been accessing the private mails of some top United States officials since April of 2010, which coincides with Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state and her decision to use a private email server, Morning Joe’s Willie Geist reported Tuesday.

“The email grab, first code-named Dancing Panda, targeted top national security and trade officials,” Geist said. “It continued as late as 2014. The timing does overlap with Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state and her use of a private email server.”

“Many” top officials have been hacked, according to a high-level intelligence source and a top-secret document obtained by NBC News.

***

Now comes a global network of hacking and their successful and criminal activities.

Exposing a new front in cybercrime, U.S. authorities broke up an alleged insider trading ring that relied on computer hackers to pilfer corporate press announcements and then profited by trading on the sensitive information before it became public.

In morning raids in Georgia and Pennsylvania, federal agents arrested five men in the plot, while four others indicted on hacking and securities fraud charges remain at large.

The hackers, who are thought to be in Ukraine and possibly Russia, allegedly infiltrated the computer servers of PRNewswire Association LLC, Marketwired and Business Wire, a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., over a five-year period.

They siphoned more than 100,000 press releases including corporate data on earnings that could be used to anticipate stock market moves and make profitable trades. The hackers passed the information to associates in the U.S., who allegedly used it to buy and sell shares of dozens of companies, including Panera Bread Co., Boeing Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., Caterpillar Inc. and Oracle Corp., through retail brokerage accounts. A must read for the rest of the details is here.

***

Most chilling of all is the forward leaning and creative uses of drones.

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Forget Facebook drones that broadcast Wifi. The future is drones that hack from above. A company called Aerial Assault has turned a quadcopter into a flying hacker that scans the world below for insecure devices and vulnerable Wifi ports. Its makers say they built the tool for penetration testing — to help “good guys” diagnose their own weaknesses — but they concede that with a bit of modification, it could be used to exploit those vulnerabilities and install malware from the air. This is why it’s paramount to get your I.T. network looked at by a penetration testing company, you may think this is a scary thing for your company to undergo however, it will actually prevent people (hackers) from stealing your companies information as all of the weak spots would of been identified and then rectified.

The unnamed drone, which may be the first unmanned aerial penetration tool for sale to the public, was on display at the DEF CON hacker conference here last week. It uses a small Raspberry Pi computer running the Kali Linux penetration tester software with the broadcast range extended by alpha radio antennas. It will retail for $2,500 when the Web site goes up in a few days, its makers say.

“We’ve set it up so it does some basic [penetration] testing stuff and coordinates all that data with GPS coordinates from the flight controller. From that, you can extend it with every type of capability that you want Kali Linux to do,” said David Jordan, a representative from Aerial Assault who was selling it on the floor at the DEF CON conference in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday.

While the drone isn’t specifically designed to distribute malware, Jordan acknowledged it could be modified to do so. “It is up to the user to decide what they do with it. If the user, they have Raspberry Pi with Kali on it, they can reprogram custom scripts. That’s good for doing more extensive [penetration] testing. But, you know, scripts can be whatever they are,” he said. “Our intended use is for pentesters to be able to diagnose vulnerabilities and help people understand what their Wifi accessibility is, even up in the air.”

 

White House Continues to Ignore Russian Aggressions and Violations

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First, Russia has laid claim to territory in the Artic and the White House waved off any concern.

Then the White House left the matter of seizing the chemical weapons being used by Bashir al Assad in Syria to Russia while chlorine and napalm is being used to kill people in Syria today.

Then Russia and several other countries within BRICS have established a large fund and alternative currency system bypassing all Western monetary funds and the White House along with the U.S. Treasury looks the other way.

Russia has hacked into classified and protected government computer networks with no consequence even while Russia bombers have flown within airspace challenging NORAD with provocative aggressions.

Wait, there is more.

In part from the FreeBeacon:

The White House is blocking the release of a Pentagon risk assessment of Russia’s violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, according to a senior House leader.

Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, disclosed the existence of the Pentagon assessment last month and said the report is needed for Congress’ efforts to address the problem in legislation.

“As we look to the near-term future, we need to consider how we’re going to respond to Russia’s INF violations,” Rogers said in an Air Force Association breakfast July 8. “Congress will not continue to tolerate the administration dithering on this issue.”

Rogers said the assessment was conducted by chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, and noted that it outlines potential responses to the treaty breach.

However, Rogers noted that the assessment “seems to stay tied up in the White House.”

At the Pentagon, spokesman Capt. Greg Hicks said: “The Chairman’s assessment of Russia’s Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty violation is classified and not releasable to the public.”

Also from FNC in part:

Two Russian warships have docked in northern Iran for a series of naval training exercises with the Islamic Republic, according to Persian-language reports translated by the CIA’s Open Source Center.

The two Russian ships docked in Iran’s Anzali port on Sunday and will hold “joint naval exercises during the three-day stay of the warships in Iran,” according to a Persian-language report in Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.

“The [Russian] warships, Volgodonsk and Makhachkala docked in Anzali Port [near the Caspian Sea], in the fourth naval zone, on the afternoon of 9 August,” the report says.

The war exercises come just weeks after Iran and global powers inked a nuclear accord that will provide Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief in return for slight restrictions on the country’s nuclear program.

Russian and Iran have grown close in recent years, with delegations from each country regularly visiting one another to ink arms deals and other agreements aimed at strengthening Iran’s nuclear program.

One last item but certainly not last, the Saudis have attempted several times to work with Russia on Syria with no viable solution.

Reuters:

Russia and Saudi Arabia failed in talks on Tuesday to overcome their differences on the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a central dispute in Syria’s civil war that shows no sign of abating despite renewed diplomacy.

Russia is pushing for a coalition to fight Islamic State insurgents — who have seized swathes of northern and eastern Syria — that would involve Assad, a longtime ally of Moscow. But, speaking after talks in Moscow, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir reiterated Riyadh’s stance that Assad must go.

“A key reason behind the emergence of Islamic State was the actions of Assad who directed his arms at his nation, not Islamic State,” Jubeir told a news conference after talks with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov.

So, with these recent events, is the White House intimidated by Russia, cooperating with Russia or just ignoring Russia or perhaps a combination of all three and then exactly why. Your comments are invited.

 

SHE is the ISIS Recruiter Deployed by Russia?

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Isis launches Russian-language propaganda channel

Islamic State’s social media and video efforts have stepped up, part of a region-wide effort to sign up youths to fight take up the black flag. RFE/RL reports

The Guardian: The militant group Islamic State has stepped up its Russian-language propaganda efforts, another sign it is becoming more powerful in the post-Soviet countries.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said recently that 2,000 Russian nationals are currently fighting in Syria or Iraq. In June, the country’s security council chief, Nikolai Patrushev, said that there was “no possibility” of stemming the tide of fighters.

Though Russian-speaking Islamic State (Isis) militants have put out their own messages for some time, in recent weeks a new Russian-language wing, Furat Media, has emerged, with Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr accounts broadcasting under a river-themed logo.

It was through Furat that the militant group declared the establishment of a province in the North Caucasus, inside the Russian Federation itself. The propaganda wing also issued a professionally produced video, Unity Of The Mujahideen Of The Caucasus, which included interviews with Russian-speaking militants in Iraq and Syria. Dozens more are available for download from the site.  Read more here.

 

Main Russian IS Recruiter ‘Identified In Turkey,’ But Who Is One-Legged Akhmet?

Radio Free Europe: Russia’s security services claim to have established the identity of the main recruiter of Russian nationals to the Islamic State (IS) militant group, according to the Russian tabloid Life News, which has close ties to the country’s security services.

The man in question is a 30-year-old Chechen nicknamed One-Legged Akhmet, Life News reported on August 4.

Among those purportedly recruited by One-Legged Akhmet and his
Among those purportedly recruited by One-Legged Akhmet and his “team” are Russian student Varvara Karaulova (above) and Maryam Ismailova. Karaulova was detained in Turkey and returned to Russia, where prosecutors did not press charges; Ismailova remains at large.

However, details in the Life News report and in a subsequent August 7 report by the Caucasian Knot blog suggest that the individual in question could be an ethnic Chechen who has previously appeared alongside Russian-speaking IS militants in a video shot in IS-controlled territory.

According to the Life News report, two of One-Legged Akhmet’s subordinates — Yakub Ibragimov, 23, from Chechnya and Abdulla Abdulayev from Makhachkala in Daghestan (aka The Uzbek) — have already been detained in Turkey.

But One-Legged Akhmet remains at large.

The report did not give a name for One-Legged Akhmet or say where in Chechyna he is from, saying that his name has not been released because security forces from Russia and Turkey are seeking him.

However, the report did provide information about his alleged activities.

One-Legged Akhmet was responsible for recruiting Russian citizens from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the North Caucasus and facilitating their travel from Turkey into Syria, according to Life News.

Among those purportedly recruited by One-Legged Akhmet and his “team” are Russian student Varvara Karaulova and Maryam Ismailova. Karaulova was detained in Turkey and returned to Russia, where prosecutors did not press charges; Ismailova remains at large.

Life News quoted an anonymous member of Russia’s law-enforcement authorities who said that Turkish and Russian police had “established IS recruitment and delivery channels for Russians.”

“Under their scheme, people are first recruited over the Internet, after which they are met in Istanbul. Then, One-Legged Akhmet and his subordinates produced fake documents in a few days and transported [the recruits] across the Turkey-Syria border,” the source was quoted as saying.

Discrepancies?

On July 28, Turkish and Azerbaijani media reported that the authorities in Turkey had arrested three men who were accused of being members of IS. According to these reports, one of the men was named Abdullah Abdulayev and had introduced himself as IS’s Emir of Istanbul.

It is not clear whether the Abdulla Abdulayev, referred to as an Azerbaijani in the Turkish media reports, is the same individual that Life News has identified as being from Daghestan.

One-Armed Akhmed

While details of One-Legged Akhmet remain murky, the alleged suspect’s name is very reminiscent of that of another notorious IS militant from Chechnya.

Akhmed Chatayev, also known as Akhmed Shishani or One-Armed Akhmed, emerged in Syria in late 2014 or early 2015 alongside leading figures in IS’s North Caucasian contingent.

Chatayev was previously granted refugee status in Austria. He was arrested by Georgian forces in 2012 in connection with the Lopota Gorge incident, in which an armed group clashed with Georgian special forces. Chatayev was later released after a court found him innocent. (His lawyers say he lost his arm as a result of torture by Russian security forces, while Russia says he was disabled while fighting in Chechnya.)

An anonymous member of the Caucasian diaspora in Turkey told the Caucasian Knot news website on August 7 that the leader of the Istanbul cell was a Chechen who had been involved in the 2012 Lopota Gorge incident and had lost a leg. However, the source also said that the armed group had been attempting to travel to Syria, which is a theory that has not been advanced previously.

There has also been no official notification from the Turkish government about the detention of a Russian citizen, a Russian consular representative in Ankara told the Caucasian Knot.

Regardless of whether Chatayev is the shadowy individual suggested by Life News, given his links in Europe and the North Caucasus and his associations with senior Russian-speaking IS figures in Syria and Iraq, it is likely that he is involved in recruitment for IS. Certainly, Abu Jihad, the ethnic Karachai with whom Chatayev appears in a video shared by IS earlier this year, is involved in IS recruitment via his work heading IS’s Russian-language propaganda outlet, Furat Media.

It is unknown whether Chatayev is still in Syria — he has not appeared in IS videos for some months — or whether he is in Turkey.