ISIS Caliphate Cyber Army Next Soft Targets

Posted on March 30, 2016March 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

MarketWatch: Companies could become larger targets of pro-Islamic State hackers, according to a security company that analyzes the group’s online activity.

The hacking capabilities of ISIS, which has spread propaganda through online channels such as Facebook and Twitter, remain nascent and relatively unsophisticated, according to researchers at the New York-based intelligence company Flashpoint. But the group has gained supporters with hacking skills who are helping propel the group’s online campaigns, the researchers say.

“These are individuals that are hackers first, ISIS supporters second,” says Laith Alkhouri, cofounder and director of research and analysis for the Middle East and North Africa at Flashpoint. “This is definitely a problem in the U.S. for individual businesses, especially individually businesses that are catering to customers digitally.”

Alkhouri says the pro-ISIS hackers typically deface websites to post messages in support of the group to gain notoriety and spread their propaganda. Flashpoint tracked one pro-ISIS hacking group by the end of 2014 and since then, at least five different groups have emerged, typically by defacing their websites. It’s difficult to know the full scope and number of ISIS-backing hackers because they’re behind computers, he says.

Pro-ISIS hackers have in the last year targeted government agencies, universities, businesses and media outlets of all sizes, according to a report released in August by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. While ISIS hacking capabilities have been considered relatively unsophisticated and focused on companies that may not have a large security apparatus, some still worry the group could bring on more skilled hackers.

For example, on Aug. 8, ISIS supporters posted messages saying “i love you Islamic State & Jihad” on the website of a Cincinnati restaurant, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute. French media outlets held an emergency meeting after hack attacks on TV5Monde’s website in April 2015, according to The Guardian.

Small or medium-sized companies with amateur websites should monitor each page to ensure a subsection of the website hasn’t been defaced with pro-ISIS messages, Alkhouri says. Often, he says, companies may not immediately realize a subsection of their website has been taken over by ISIS supporters, and the message could hurt the brand among customers. Alkhouri says the group’s attacks could escalate as the hackers seek more notoriety and publicity for their acts.

One pro-ISIS hacking group claimed it planned to take down Google, according to Newsweek, but instead posted its messages on the website of an Indian company called Add Google Online.

The Pentagon has launched an online offensive against ISIS, according to reports, in an attempt to frustrate the group’s computer and phone networks.

A prominent ISIS hacker was killed in a drone strike last year, The Wall Street Journal reported, after U.S. and British officials determined he played a key role in sharpening the group’s computer skills.

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Meanwhile, the FBI is on the trail stemming from the attacks in Belgium where investigations of internet and electronic communications could reveal more on the cyberwar, soft targets.

FBI examining laptops linked to Belgian militants: source

Reuters: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is examining laptop computers linked to suspects in last week’s deadly Brussels bombings as investigators work to unravel the militant network behind the attacks.

The laptops arrived in the U.S. on Friday and now are being examined by FBI experts, a U.S. government source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Belgian authorities had provided copies of laptop hard drives to the FBI. It is not yet clear whether FBI technicians have recovered any significant data from the equipment the Belgians turned over, the source told Reuters.

U.S. officials have pledged support for Belgian efforts to crack down on militants behind the March 22 suicide bomb attacks at a Brussels Metro station and the city’s Zaventem Airport and other recent attacks.

The death toll from the attack on the airport, and the subsequent bombing of a rush-hour metro train, rose to 35 on Monday, excluding the three men who blew themselves up.

On Saturday, President Barack Obama said the a team of FBI agents was helping investigators on the ground in Belgium.

U.S. officials have said that Belgium’s security and intelligence agencies are overstretched and also hampered by internal political, financial and cultural problems, including a linguistic divide between French and Flemish speaking investigators.

Palestinian Authority Paying Terrorists

Posted on March 29, 2016March 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

CRS March Report in part: Since the establishment of limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the mid-1990s, the U.S. government has committed more than $5 billion in bilateral economic and non-lethal security assistance to the Palestinians, who are among the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid. Successive Administrations have requested aid for the Palestinians in apparent support of at least three major U.S. policy priorities of interest to Congress:

* Promoting the prevention or mitigation of terrorism against Israel from Hamas and other militant organizations.

* Fostering stability, prosperity, and self-governance in the West Bank that may incline Palestinians toward peaceful coexistence with Israel and a “two-state solution.”

* Meeting humanitarian needs.

Report: Palestinian Authority Paying Terrorists with Foreign Aid, Despite Promise to Stop

TheTower: The Palestinian Authority has continued to award lifetime payments to convicted terrorists, despite a promise to end the practice, an investigative report published Sunday by The Mail on Sunday (MoS) revealed. The report was part of a broader investigation into what the paper described as the “wasteful” use of British taxpayer money.

According to MoS, the British government gives £72 million (over $102 million) to the Palestinians annually, with more than one-third of that sum directly going to the PA. While the PA said it that would no longer use aid money to pay terrorists or their families, recipients of the funds and official PA statements confirm that the practice continues.

Ahmad Musa, who admitted to shooting two Israelis dead, told MoS that he receives a monthly stipend of £605 (over $850). Musa was jailed for life for his crimes, but was freed after five years in an Israeli effort to restart peace talks with the PA.

Amjad and Hakim Awad, two cousins who in 2011 massacred five members of the Fogel family– parents Ehud and Ruth Fogel, 11 year-old Yoav, four year-old Elad, and three month-old Hadas– in their West Bank home, have been also been paid. Amjad alone may have received more than £16,000 (nearly $23,000), according to estimates. (In 2012, PA television praised the cousins as “heroes.”)

Another terrorist on the payroll is veteran Hamas bomb-maker Abdallah Barghouti. Barghouti is serving 67 life sentences in an Israeli jail over his role in numerous bombings, including at the Hebrew University cafeteria in 2002, the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem in 2001, and a Rishon Lezion nightclub bombing in 2002, which killed 66 people. He is believed to have received £106,000 (over $150,000) for his efforts.

“[The] cash-strapped PA relies on foreign aid for nearly half its budget,” MoS reported. “Yet it gives £79 million a year to prisoners locked up in Israeli jails, former prisoners and their families.” When the paper asked the UK’s Department For International Development about the payments, the DFID defended them as “social welfare” for the families of prisoners, but denied that any British aid was involved. (In a similar vein, when asked about the PA’s payments to terrorists and their families, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson told a congressional hearing in 2014, “they have to provide for the families.”)

The Other Iranian Spending Spree, Syria?

Posted on March 29, 2016March 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Iran changing the face of Syria especially Damascus. Altering the human population and infrastructure has been underway for a long while. Question is how deeply involved is Russia with this? An Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps new base? Iran has moved to take full control of the Middle East and Russia paved the way with the assistance of Barack Obama and John Kerry.

Iranians Fuel Property Frenzy in Syria

VoA: The Iranian government is encouraging prominent Tehran developers to buy property in well-off Shi’ite majority neighborhoods in Syria’s capital, analysts and construction industry sources in Tehran said.

“Entire neighborhoods have been purchased by Iran,” Syrian economist Khorshid Alika told VOA.

During the early days of Syria’s civil war, Tehran kept Iran’s involvement in Syria mostly from public view. In recent months, though, the government-run media have been reporting how Iran has teamed up with Russia to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against opposition rebels and the Islamic State group.

Tehran has reportedly increased the size of its Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria, sending as many as 3,500 fighters to the front lines to defend Zeinab Shrine, a holy site for Shi’ite Muslims in the southern suburbs of Damascus.

Market inflation

According to news reports, rich and conservative Iranian business people with ties to the government are buying expensive properties and lavish homes in the affluent districts of Damascus. The high demand for property has contributed to price increases in Syria’s real estate market, experts said.

“Five million houses have been destroyed in the civil war. The increased Iranian demand to buy land and properties has naturally led to more inflation in the [real estate] market,” Alika said.

Iran has reportedly relied on a prominent Shi’ite cleric, Abdullah Nazzam, to arrange its real estate dealings in Syria. Using his religious authority in Damascus and ties with the Syrian government, Nazzam has persuaded residents to sell their properties to Iranian businessmen.

“Some Iranian businessmen have been offering huge sums of money to buy Syrian houses near a holy Shi’ite site,” a Damascus landowner recently told a pro-opposition Syrian news site, All For Syria.

He said some owners, including himself, had refused to sell their properties, but under Syrian government pressure, they had no choice but to accept the offers, the resident said.

Alika, who studies the trends of local economies in Syria’s civil war, said Iranians tend to buy properties in areas of strategic importance.

“They are buying houses and lands near Shi’ite religious sites in Damascus,” he told VOA by phone.

Iran’s interest in owning real estate in Syria is not new, analysts said, but it increased after the beginning of the rebel uprising in 2011.

“The [Iranian] regime has always been active in the real estate market in Syria, but their boost became more visible,” said journalist Ali Nawaf, a Damascus native living in Turkey.

“After the [Syrian] revolution [in 2011], Iran realized that buying properties in Damascus and elsewhere would give it yet another excuse to continue its interference in Syria,” he told VOA.

FILE – Members of a construction crew work at a site for new apartment buildings in Damascus, Syria.

Go to Syria, workers told

Iran’s government is urging Iranian construction workers to go to Syria.

“A few months ago I was invited to a work-related gathering, and a fellow veteran contractor with strong ties with [Iranian] authorities informed us that there are very lucrative opportunities for builders in Damascus,” Amir Maghsoudloo, an Iranian construction contractor in Tehran, told VOA.

“When we asked about the security of the site, he said that the zone is even more secure than Tehran,” he said. “I turned the offer down due to family and security reasons, but, two other fellow contractors, as far as I know, got some projects in Damascus.”

Bricklayer Tahir Esmaili, an Afghan national who worked in Iran before moving to Syria in 2015, told VOA some Afghan workers in Iran had been offered construction jobs in Damascus.

Roughly 3 million Afghans live in Iran. Most settled there after fleeing war and conflict in their homeland. Many Afghans in Iran lack basic rights and live without a formal status. Most earn low wages in Iran, making Syria a lucrative alternative.

“There are quite a few projects running near [the holy Shi’ite site of] Sayyida Rouqqaya and the Iranian Embassy,” Esmaili said. “These projects are being dominantly run by Afghan nationals from Iran.”

Wider area of control

By buying properties throughout Syria, Iran is seeking to safeguard its presence in the war-torn country, even after a potential collapse of Assad’s government, experts said.

“Iran’s goal of owning property in Syria goes beyond business interest,” said Iranian analyst Fariborz Saremi told VOA from Germany. “Controlling Syria politically, militarily and economically, through real estate, would only make Tehran in a better position to stay in control of other parts of the Middle East.”

Damascus isn’t the only area in Syria where Iranians have been buying properties, analysts said.

In the central city of Homs, local activists said more Iranian business people and companies are looking for new opportunities after the Syrian military and its Lebanese Hezbollah alllies took control of the city in late 2015.

“The [Syrian] regime wants Iranians to invest in Homs, because it connects Damascus to the Alawite heartland in the coastal region,” Nawaf said.

And with more Iranian-owned properties, Iran would have more incentives to maintain a stronger military presence in Homs and beyond, analysts said.

****

VoA: Iran’s government wants its builders to buy up property in Shi-ite majority neighborhoods of Syria’s capital, Damascus.

It is also asking construction workers to go to Syria.

This information comes from construction industry officials in Tehran and Iranian experts.

Iranian analyst Fariborz Saremi said owning real estate gives Iran more control over Syria and other parts of the Middle East.

Rich and conservative Iranian business people with ties to the government are buying expensive homes in Damascus, according to news reports. This is influencing price increases in Syria’s real estate markets.

“Five million houses have been destroyed in the civil war,” said Syrian economist Khorshid Alika told Voice of America. “The increased Iranian demand to buy land and properties has naturally led to more inflation in the market.”

Iran’s interest in Syrian real estate is not new. But it increased after the rebel uprising began in 2011.

Government-run media have been reporting recently about how Iran joined Russia to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Assad’s government has been fighting against rebels and the Islamic State terror group.

Iran is not only asking people to buy homes and property in Syria. The country is also asking construction workers and contractors to take jobs there.

Get Out of Turkey, Next Target?

Posted on March 29, 2016March 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

U.S. tells diplomatic and military families to leave south Turkey

WASHINGTON — The State Department and Pentagon ordered the families of U.S. diplomats and military personnel Tuesday to leave posts in southern Turkey due to “increased threats from terrorist groups” in the country.

The two agencies said dependents of American staffers at the U.S. consulate in Adana, the Incirlik air base and two other locations must leave. The so-called “ordered departure” notice means the relocation costs will be covered by the government.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said no specific threat triggered the order, but said it was done “out of an abundance of caution” for the safety of the families in that region. He said he was not aware of a deadline for the families to leave, but said “this will move very quickly.”

In a statement, the military’s European Command said the step “allows for the deliberate, safe return of family members from these areas due to continued security concerns in the region.”

The orders cover the Adana consulate, U.S. military dependents in Incirlik, Ismir and Mugla as well as family of U.S. government civilians at Ismir and Mugla. The State Department also restricted official travel to that which it considers “mission critical.” Cook said that the order does not affect about 100 family members who are based in Istanbul and Ankara.

The move comes amid heightened security concerns throughout Turkey due to the ongoing fight against Islamic State militants in neighbouring Syria and Iraq and was accompanied by an updated travel warning advising U.S. citizens of an increased threat of attacks. It also comes as Turkey’s president is set to arrive in Washington to attend President Barack Obama’s nuclear security summit.

“We understand this is disruptive to our military families, but we must keep them safe and ensure the combat effectiveness of our forces to support our strong ally Turkey in the fight against terrorism,” the European Command statement said.

Incirlik is a critical base in the fight by the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group, and includes strike aircraft, drones and refuelling planes.

Turkey’s decision last year to allow the coalition to conduct airstrikes with aircraft based at Incirlik shortened the time and distance required to conduct airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, compared with strikes flown from bases in the Persian Gulf area. And it increased the number of U.S. personnel at the base.

NATO’s Allied Land Command is based at Ismir and there is a Turkish base at Mugla where some U.S. military personnel go for training and other missions.

It was not immediately clear how many family members would be affected in total. The Pentagon said the order would affect about 680 military family members and roughly 270 pets. The State Department and Pentagon had begun a voluntary drawdown of staff at the two posts last September after Turkey announced it would take a greater role in the fight against Islamic State militants.

At the time, military officials said they had recommended the voluntary departure from Incirlik because of specific calls by militants for lone wolf attacks against the air base.

On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry met with Turkish Foreign Mevlut Cavusoglu. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the two discussed measures to secure the Turkey-Syria border and disrupt extremist networks.

According to a U.S. official, the decision to order families to leave stemmed from the ongoing assessment of security threats in Turkey. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The decision comes a day after Israel issued a new travel advisory for Turkey, warning its citizens to leave the country as soon as possible and to avoid any travelling there.

Israel tells citizens to get out of Turkey as soon as possible

Israel has issued a new travel warning asking its citizens to leave Turkey as soon as they can. The Counter-Terrorism Bureau at the Prime Minister’s Office has also advised the public to avoid visiting Turkey.

The travel warning came after the country raised the terror risk alert in Turkey from level 3 which is a basic concrete threat to level 2 which is a high concrete threat. The revision in the alert took effect following the terror attack in central Istanbul on 19 March in which three Israelis were killed and several others wounded.

Stripes: ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s president says the Turkish security forces have killed or captured more than 5,300 Kurdish rebels since hostilities resumed in July.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said Monday a total of 355 security force members have been killed in the conflict during that period – 215 soldiers, 133 police officers and seven government-paid village guards.

The conflict flared in the summer after a fragile peace process that began in 2012 broke down. Since then, government forces have launched large-scale offensives against Kurdish militants in several urban districts in the mainly-Kurdish southeast region while Turkish jets have carried out cross-border airstrikes on suspected PKK Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq.

The PKK, which is fighting for Kurdish autonomy, is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and its allies.

ISIS: Our Soldiers are Everywhere

Posted on March 28, 2016March 28, 2016 by Denise Simon

And a major recruiting center in Europe and Belgium are prisons.

How Belgian prisons became a breeding ground for Islamic extremism

WaPo: LIEGE, Belgium — Stephane Medot knows a thing or two about Belgian prisons. He spent 10 years in them. Arrested for carrying out more than a dozen armed bank robberies, the stocky, bald-headed Medot moved from prison to prison, from one cell of his own to another, until he served out his time.

Along the way, he got a front-row seat in a prison system that has become a breeding ground for violent Muslim extremists. Many of those involved in the Paris and Brussels attacks first did short stints behind bars for relatively petty crimes. And there these wayward young people met proselytizers and appear to have acquired a new, lethal sense of purpose.

A Belgian prison is where Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who helped plan the Paris attacks and who was killed in a police raid in November, met Salah Abdeslam, an alleged Paris attacker who was captured in Brussels this month. Salah’s brother Brahim, who blew himself up in Paris, also served time.

[Probe into Brussels bombings expands across Europe]

Two of the suicide bombers in the Brussels attacks last week, brothers Ibrahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui, had spent time in Belgian prisons for violent offenses that included armed robbery and carjacking.

Medot, now 37, said that from prison to prison, the routine he witnessed was similar. Proselytizing prisoners used exercise hours and small windows in their cells to swap news, copies of the Koran and small favors such as illicit cellphones. Gradually, they won over impressionable youths and taught them to stop drinking and start thinking about perceived injustices such as the invasion of Iraq, the plight of Palestinians or the treatment of their own immigrant families.

The prison guards, who could not understand Arabic, had a “laissez-faire attitude,” he said, and did nothing to stop the pulsating music or political discussions.

“If you’re not a Muslim, you feel the need to adapt to the rules,” said Medot, who is not Muslim. When the hour for prayer arrived, everyone was asked to turn off televisions so as not to disturb the faithful.

For the past year, Belgium’s Ministry of Justice has been planning to change a prison system widely seen as a school for radicals. It is creating two isolated areas, each with room for 20 people, at Hasselt and Ittre prisons for the most radical inmates. At the moment, said ministry spokeswoman Sieghild Lacoere, only five inmates clearly qualify. The segregation is set to begin April 11.

“The best solution for fighting the process of radicalization,” the ministry said in its action plan last year before the Paris and Brussels attacks, is “one part isolation by concentration, completely isolating the radical individuals from the other detainees to avoid a great contamination” and prevent them from “feeding other detainees more of their ideology.”

The ministry also said it would improve living conditions in the overcrowded prisons. Belgium has about 11,000 prisoners, Lacoere said, of whom 20 to 30 percent are Muslims, even though Muslims make up only about 6 percent of the population.

France, with Europe’s largest Muslim population, is facing similar problems. It, too, has opened special units, manned by psychologists, historians and sociologists, for potentially violent extremists at five prisons. A year ago it vowed to hire 60 more Muslim chaplains.

[French prisons, hotbeds of radical Islam, get new scrutiny after Paris attacks]

Medot said that changing the culture of prison is difficult. He said that youths “arrive alone, feel alone” and that the older Muslim inmates “attract guys who want to become fuller members of the group.”

Medot was in prison when terrorists attacked London, Madrid and a Jewish school in Toulouse, France. He said many prisoners celebrated what their “brothers” did. Medot said that when discussing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, many would say that “Americans stole the [Middle East’s] oil and that this is revenge and this is just.”

For several months, Medot said, he overlapped with Nizar Trabelsi, a professional soccer player turned al-Qaeda follower who confessed in 2003 to an aborted plot to drive a car packed with explosives into Kleine Brogel, a NATO air base in Belgium where U.S. nuclear missiles are thought to be stored. Trabelsi served 10 years in Belgium and then was extradited to the United States, despite condemnation from the European Court of Human Rights.

“He was one of the guys who was seen as a hero,” Medot said. In prison in Belgium, Trabelsi, a Tunisian, taught Arabic by passing books through the cells’ small windows. Though Medot, considered a flight risk, had his own cell, others stayed in cells with two to five people. Trabelsi also played loud Koranic music and prayers from his cell, as well as recordings of bullets and shooting. The guards did nothing except occasionally ask that he turn down the volume.

“The parents will come and visit, and the detainee will say he wants books, wants to find religion and change his ways,” Medot said, “and parents see that as positive, to take a path away from petty crime, away from drugs, away from alcohol. And they don’t know what is happening on the inside.”

[Security forces missed chances before the Brussels attacks]

But Medot said that the government’s plan to isolate radicals won’t work. Who will decide which prisoners are too radical to stay with other detainees? Won’t they become even more radical in isolation? And what will happen to them when their sentences run out?

Lacoere said the Justice Ministry’s plan includes hiring more experts to “de-radicalize” inmates. She said guards will get special training. She said isolating the radicals isn’t the same as abandoning them; they will get more intensive attention, she said.

Still, she acknowledged, there will be difficult issues. “There is not a lot of knowledge in the academic world on this de-
radicalization. It’s a very hard topic to talk about,” she said. “It’s about influencing people’s ideas, and there’s freedom of speech and thought in our country.”

Salmi Hedi, a Tunisian-born imam, has worked in the Belgian prison system for nearly 20 years trying to de-radicalize inmates. He said Belgium’s 18 penitentiaries share just eight imams and one woman religious counselor. The Justice Ministry has promised 11 more.

He disagrees with the government’s diagnosis and concern about “contamination” by radicals.

“Are they viruses? It is not a constructive view,” Hedi said. “It is very dangerous. If you put these people together, you cannot control them anymore. They will feel stronger.”