Decrepit weapons delayed Syrian train-and-equip effort; US searches for new options; Russian aggression reshaping arms market; Bowing to China?; And a bit more.
We may now have one reason why the Pentagon’s train-and-equip mission in Syria took so long to get up and running—and the story runs through a pile of 30-year-old weapons and a former Navy SEAL armorer who met an untimely death in Bulgaria back in June. Aram Roston, investigative reporter for Buzzfeed, writes that the delays started after U.S. Special Operations Command gave a little-known company called Purple Shovel more than $50 million to buy secondhand arms for the Syrian fighters.
The weapons included “2,640 armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenades, of a type called the PG-7VM, along with hundreds of shoulder-mounted launchers. Then there were 6,240 even longer-range anti-tank grenades called PG-9Vs, which are fired from launchers called SPG-9s.”
Problem was, the grenades had not been refurbished since they were manufactured in the mid-1980s—rendering the weapons “either unstable, so they can blow up in a soldier’s hand, or inert, so that soldiers can’t fire the weapons,” Roston writes. And the former is what occurred to 41-year-old defense contractor Francis Norwillo, “according to five sources and Bulgarian news accounts.”
SOCOM acknowledges that it hired Purple Shovel, then rejected the weapons, although officials dispute the circumstances around Norwillo’s death (“To the best of our knowledge, he was not supporting our contract when the incident took place,” a spokesman told Buzzfeed — contradicting a statement by the U.S. embassy in Bulgaria). The Pentagon insists delays in securing suitable arms for Syrian rebels “did not prevent training from occurring.” Read the full report, here.
Meanwhile, the White House just might drop the whole idea of training a large force for fighting the Islamic State inside Syria, The Wall Street Journal reports. And The New York Times adds that the administration is deflecting blame for the mission it calls an “abysmal failure” to those who advised it in the first place—“a group that, in addition to congressional Republicans, happened to include former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
Where to go from here? “Under one proposal being crafted at the Pentagon, the $500 million train-and-equip program…would be supplanted by a more modest effort focused on creating specially trained militants empowered to call in U.S. airstrikes…[built] on the successful model of cooperation between the U.S. and the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG.” the WSJ reports. But U.S. deal with Turkey complicates that, forcing the U.S. to look “at picking Arab groups in northern Syria to serve as a test case for the revised approach…The shift would mean that U.S.-backed fighters would join larger groups that haven’t been vetted by American officials.”
Another option includes opening the door to collaboration with Russia among “midlevel emissaries of the countries, not top officials” while reigniting “long-stalled international talks aimed at reaching a resolution to Syria’s multi-sided war.” But what new direction will actually be selected remains anyone’s guess as both the NYT and WSJ repeatedly flag a lack of consensus among administration and defense officials.
Back in Moscow, Russia says if Syria requests additional troops for its cause, it “will be discussed and considered,” AP writes this morning. Despite reports to the contrary, Russia’s presidential spokesman Dmetry Peskov denied claims Moscow’s troops were fighting alongside the Assad regime while Syria’s foreign minister insisted all they need now is to reap the rewards of Russia having “stepped up the pace” of its supply flights of weapons and ammunition.
In London, Russia’s aggressive stances along Europe’s eastern borders have NATO militaries racing to rebuild their combined-arms skills—and Western defense companies revamping their product lines to suit, Defense One Global Business Reporter Marcus Weisgerber writes from the Defence Security Exposition International, better known as DSEI, “where armor and air-defense batteries are shouldering aside the lighter, less expensive gear of counterinsurgency.”
“The show’s two sprawling halls were packed with tanks, armored vehicles, long-range cruise missiles, drones of all sizes, high-tech electronics, and other equipment,” Weisgerber writes. “Behind the massive building, a handful of warships from the Royal Navy, Canada, Germany, and India tied up at the Royal Victoria Dock off the Thames River… DSEI attendees said the fears of Russia coming west have spurred a renewed emphasis on helping land, naval, and ground forces train together—rather than individually, as had become the general habit.”
“Much of the discussion at DSEI focused on three security crises: the fighting in eastern Ukraine, the Western air campaign against the Islamic State, and the millions of Syrians seeking refuge in Europe...European countries are also interested in long-range weapons that can fly deep into enemy territory. That, too, reflects a shift from operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the lack of enemy air defenses allowed the use of simpler gravity bombs.” Read Weisgerber’s report in full right here.
In Pakistan, Taliban gunmen stormed a military air base outside of Peshawar this morning, killing 20 people, “most of whom were offering prayers in a mosque,” Reuters reports. “The attack triggered an hours-long firefight at the base and the Pakistani forces said they killed 13 of the attackers, though it was unclear how many were involved in the assault. Apart from 16 slain inside the mosque, three guards employed with the air force and an army captain were also killed,” AP adds. “The attackers first stormed the guard room of the Badaber base” and then approached “from different directions in a two-pronged assault—apparently one push targeted the mosque—but that security forces quickly responded.”
Shortly afterward, “a suspected U.S. drone strike hit a home in the South Waziristan tribal region, south of Peshawar, killing at least three militants and wounding five,” two Pakistani security officials told the AP.
“Friday's attack came a day after Pakistan reported the arrest a militant figure behind a recent failed attempt to target an air force facility in Kamra, also in the northwest of the country,” AP reports. Also on Thursday, “the Pakistani police in Karachi also reported the arrest of another prominent suspect, Syed Sheaba Ahmad, a former air force pilot who allegedly helped finance al-Qaida’s newly formed South Asian affiliate.” More here.
From Defense One
Kabul’s mood turns toward despair. From shopkeepers to university lecturers, writes Quartz’s Haroro J. Ingram, the question of whether security is improving in an increasingly independent Afghanistan was met with just one response: Things are actually worse. Read about this incipient crisis, here.
Lawmakers reheat war over defense vs. non-defense spending. An announcement from Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell is seen as a coup for Democrats who want a plan to raise budget caps on both defense and nondefense spending, writes National Journal’s Sarah Mims, here.
A long-awaited, top-secret cellphone is just one new tool the Pentagon can expect soon. In a call with reporters, the Defense Department's chief information officer shared a handful of new developments on the Pentagon's tech horizon. NextGov’s Mohana Ravindranath rolls them up, here.
Welcome to Friday’s edition of The D Brief, from Ben Watson and Brad Peniston. Want to share The D Brief with a friend? Here’s our subscribe link. And please tell us what you like, don’t like, or want to drop on our radar right here at the-d-brief@defenseone.com.
One step forward for U.S.-China relations. The U.S. just shipped back one of China’s “most wanted fugitives” after 14 years of hiding in the States, one week ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first state visit to the White House, AP reports. “Businessman Yang Jinjun—the brother of a former deputy mayor wanted for embezzlement—is the first person to be repatriated to China from the U.S. since the ‘Sky Net’ operation targeting 100 fugitives was launched in April, the Ministry of Supervision said.”
And one more instance of divergent views on navigation in the South China Sea. “Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China was ‘extremely concerned’ about the comments and China opposed ‘any country challenging China's sovereignty and security in the name of protecting freedom of navigation,’” Reuters reports.
China’s remarks come in response to PACOM commander Adm. Harry Harris, who told senators on Thursday about his “great concern militarily” about China’s construction of three airstrips, which he said threaten to all countries in the region.
Military coup in West Africa condemned by the U.S. and U.N. Just three weeks before national elections, Burkina Faso is now ruled by a general after a shadowy group of elite presidential guards detained the president and prime minister in a coup late Wednesday. The military announced this morning the president has since been released, though the prime minister remains under house arrest, AP reports.
National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the U.S. will “review our foreign assistance to Burkina Faso in light of evolving events.” And AP notes that “Burkina Faso hosts French special forces and is an important ally of France and the United States in the fight against Islamic militants in West Africa.”
In neighboring Niger, U.S. special operations troops are “quietly trying to help Niger build a wall against Boko Haram’s incursions and its recruitment of Diffa’s youth,” Reuters writes. The soldiers “do not go into combat, or even wear uniforms” in “an experiment that is part of President Barack Obama’s new counter-terrorism strategy.”
“The U.S. soldiers in Diffa described their mission as a sharp and welcome pivot from the Iraq and Afghan wars, where virtually all of them served. The U.S. military has not said how long their presence will last.” More here.
Carly Fiorina impressed a lot of people at the second GOP debate on Wednesday, and she offered more detail than her rivals about how she would “rebuild” the U.S. military: “‘50 Army brigades, 36 Marine battalions, between 300 and 350 naval ships, and an upgrade of ‘every leg of the nuclear triad,’” writes The Daily Beast’s Kate Brannen. “These numbers seem to be pulled straight from a report released by the conservative Heritage Foundation this year.”
Just how much would this all cost? Fiorina didn’t say. So Brannen did the back-of-the-envelope math: “The answer: more than $500 billion—on top of the more than the $5 trillion the Pentagon plans to spend over the next 10 years.” Check her arithmetic, and her story, here.
By the way, Marines aren’t too pleased with Ben Carson. In Wednesday night’s debate, the #2 poller and former pediatric surgeon said many of the national-security threats the U.S. faces can be attributed to the fact that “we are weak.” But it was this line that Marines took issue with: “It’s because our Navy is so small, it’s because our Air Force is incapable of doing the same things that it did a few years ago, it’s because our Marine Corps is not ready to be deployed.” And they objected in force, as Marine Corps Times reports here.
The U.S. just shipped off one of its 116 detainees from the detention facility in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon said Thursday. Held since 2002, Younis Abdurrahman Chekkouri, 47, was sent to his home nation of Morocco on Wednesday “after officials unanimously approved his transfer,” the Miami Herald reported. Chekkouri’s move is the first since June and continues the slow slog to close the prison that has plagued the Obama administration since announcing their intentions at the start of the president’s first term.
Speaking of departures—here’s the very Hollywood story of one Qatari sheikh’s fast and furious exit from the States. Khalid bin Hamad Al Thani, who “owns a drag-racing team and is a member of the ruling family of oil- and gas-rich Qatar,” was targeted by authorities after his “bright yellow, 12-cylinder LaFerrari, which can sell for around $1.4 million new, was spotted along with a white Porsche zooming down narrow streets and blowing through stop signs on Saturday evening until they finally pulled into a driveway, the Ferrari’s engine smoking,” AP reports this morning.
When officers arrived to the house for questioning, “a man” told the officers he had diplomatic immunity—something the police said is unlikely. But police said Thursday the cars are now gone—and so is the man.