US police officer nabbed in terror sting; Tug o’ war in Aleppo; The group that gathered dirty bomb parts; Zika comes to the military; and a bit more.
For the first time, “a U.S. law enforcement officer has been accused of trying to aid a terrorist group,” the Washington Post reported Wednesday after 36-year-old Metro transit police officer Nicholas Young was arrested this week for allegedly sending “codes for mobile messaging cards to an undercover federal agent in the belief that they would be used by Islamic State fighters overseas to communicate, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Alexandria.”
Young had worked for the Metro Transit Police since 2003, and had been under surveillance for the past seven years, the Post writes. Despite occasional threats to FBI agents stateside, “Young was focused on activity abroad, not in the D.C. area, and the FBI did not take his threats against agents seriously. He told law enforcement at one point that he had traveled to Libya twice in 2011 to fight against Moammar Gaddafi.” He allegedly gave advice to a person working with law enforcement on how to travel to Syria, and how to avoid undercover agents. The FBI then mounted the kind of sting operation it commonly uses against terror suspects: “Believing the person had actually made it abroad, authorities said, Young then complied with a request to purchase gift cards for mobile messaging accounts used in Islamic State recruiting. The codes, worth $245 according to authorities, were redeemed by the FBI, not by ISIS.”
For the record: “Young is the seventh person this year to be charged in a terrorism-related case in Northern Virginia. Like the others, he is accused of having contact with other radicals without being part of an organized group, as Islamic State encourages lone-wolf attacks in the United States. In all but one, the plans were encouraged by operatives working for FBI.” Read the rest, here.
Tug o’ war in Aleppo grinds on. Rebels lose gains made versus the Russian-backed Assad regime in Aleppo, AFP reported Wednesday. “The groups waging the offensive—including Al-Qaeda's former Syria affiliate and the powerful Islamist Ahrar al-Sham—have promised to end the government encirclement of eastern parts of Aleppo. They are seeking to capture the southwestern district of Ramussa in a bid to cut off government forces and open a new route into the city for rebels…But rebels have struggled to hold newly acquired territory in the face of heavy Russian air strikes, Abdel Rahman [of Syrian Observatory for Human Rights] said. They had managed to keep control of at least four hilltops and one small village.” That, here.
The Syrian rebels that Turkey’s coup forgot. “Some of the most intense fighting in the five-year Syrian war erupted after last month’s failed Turkish coup—and it is probably no coincidence,” writes The Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov. “Many of the top Turkish military and intelligence officials involved in programs to assist the rebellion, including the commander of Turkey’s 2nd Army responsible for borders with Syria and Iraq, have been detained for alleged involvement in the July 15 putsch.”
The result “appears to have had the immediate effect of emboldening Mr. Assad. Within days of the coup attempt, Mr. Assad’s forces, aided by Iran, Hezbollah and Syrian Kurdish militias, pushed to complete the encirclement of the rebel-held eastern half of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.” The signs do not look good from there, as Trofimov writes, here.
But you can’t say Turkey is completely idle—officials rounded up 20 members of ISIS in the southern city of Adana, not far from Incirlik Air Base, as “anti-terror police, supported by a helicopter, staged simultaneous raids on 22 addresses in the city after a tip-off that Islamic State cells were planning attacks.” More here.
The U.S. is withholding $300 million to Pakistan for dragging its feet over pursuit of extremists in the Haqqani network, the Washington Post’s Missy Ryan reported Wednesday. “Adam Stump, a Pentagon spokesman, said that Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter had decided against making a certification to Congress stating that Pakistan is taking sufficient action against the Haqqani network, a Taliban affiliate blamed for attacks on U.S. and allied personnel in Afghanistan.”
The move marks “the first time the Obama administration has withheld military aid to Pakistan because of the Haqqani group, which has been a primary source of U.S. concern in Afghanistan and which in the past some U.S. officials have asserted had links to Pakistani intelligence.”
Nearly $14 billion has already been paid to Pakistan under the agreement since 2002, Reuters adds.
A little history: “Under the Coalition Support Funds (CSF) program, the United States reimburses Pakistan for its support of U.S. and allied operations in Afghanistan and helps Pakistan pay for operations it conducts against militants on its soil... Since 2002, reimbursements under the program have totaled about $14 billion, representing a significant portion of Pakistan’s defense spending… Seeking to increase pressure on Pakistan, Congress introduced new requirements related to the Haqqani network in annual defense legislation beginning in fiscal 2015. Earlier this year, lawmakers also blocked Pakistan from using another pool of U.S. military aid to buy American F-16 jets.” Read on, here.
One thing linking Afghanistan and Pakistan—China, which is looking to start an anti-terror alliance with the two countries along with Tajikistan, Reuters reports. “The four countries recognized the serious threat of terrorism and extremism to regional stability, the official Xinhua news agency said, and they agreed to set up a ‘four-country mechanism’ for intelligence sharing and training... Afghan army chief of general staff, General Qadam Shah Shaheem, Pakistani army chief General Raheel Sharif, and the Chief of General Staff of the Tajikistan armed forces, Major General E. A. Cobidrzoda, took part in the talks, the news agency said.”
From Defense One
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If there’s malware in your toaster, the U.S. military wants to find it. The idea is to protect household appliances connected to the internet by remotely monitoring subtle changes in thermal signals transmitted under normal conditions. From NextGov, here.
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Zika comes to the U.S. military, and the latest numbers show 41 troops and seven family members have been exposed to the virus that’s plagued turnout at the upcoming Olympic games in Rio, The New York Times and Military Times reported Wednesday. “The cases, which include active duty, National Guard and reserve personnel, all were acquired outside of the continental United States, but the Defense Department continues to monitor U.S. military installations at risk for mosquito-borne diseases, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Maj. Benjamin Sakrisson confirmed Wednesday,” MT writes. “U.S. military installation managers began aggressively monitoring for the species of mosquitoes that can carry Zika and other diseases in March. Nearly 200 installations are in areas where mosquitoes capable of carrying Zika are also found.”
The U.S. military has not identified “the countries where the service members had contracted the virus, but said that they had all been previously identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as places where mosquitoes with the disease are present,” NYT writes, adding, “The Army is working with outside scientists to develop a Zika vaccine.”
Those Cold War-era rehearsals never get old. “One B-52H Stratofortress from the 2nd Bomb Wing, Barksdale AFB, La., two B-52Hs from the 5th Bomb Wing, Minot AFB, N.D., and two B-2A Spirits from the 509th Bomb Wing, Whiteman AFB, Mo., were launched in simultaneous, non-stop flights from the U.S. to the North and Baltic Seas, around the North Pole and over Alaska, and over the Pacific Ocean to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, respectively,” The Aviationist reported Wednesday. “The mission, dubbed ‘POLAR ROAR’, saw some of the bombers drop inert weapons (in the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex) and included joint training with some regional partners whose fighters had the opportunity to intercept the heavy bombers.”
Catch a snapshot of their routes via this nifty map.
How to buy a dirty bomb in America: federal investigators’ edition. “The team’s members could have been anyone — a terrorist outfit, emissaries of a rival government, domestic extremists,” WaPo writes. “In fact, they were undercover bureaucrats with the investigative arm of Congress” — the GAO. “And they had pulled off the same stunt nine years before. Their fresh success has set off new alarms among some lawmakers and officials in Washington about risks that terrorists inside the United States could undertake a dirty bomb attack.”
So how did they do it? Through shell companies and a lax regulator in Texas. “The two-page Texas document authorized the company to buy the sealed radioactive material in an amount smaller than needed for any nefarious purpose. But no copies were required to be kept in a readily-accessible, government database. So after using the license to place one order, the team simply made a digital copy and changed the permitted quantities, enabling it to place a new order with another seller for twice the original amount.”
Read the rest here, or check out the full GAO report for yourself over here.
And lastly today: China has launched its very own South China Sea website, complete with historical maps, articles and research from the State Oceanic Administration.
“The South China Sea has drawn huge attention, but some information online is not accurate,” said Zhang Haiwen, SOA official in charge of international cooperation. “We hope that this website will enable domestic and overseas people to better understand it and learn about the truth behind the 'dispute' over it.”
Not everything the SOA wants on the site is on the site just yet, officials said. So keep an eye out for that “re-design,” folks. That story, here.