Precedent set for ISIS detainees; GOP debaters give natsec short shrift; U.S.-trained Syrians go missing; Exclusive video from hybrid-war exercise; and a bit more.
First detainee in ISIS war transferred to Iraqi authorities. With Baghdad’s blessing, the Pentagon last night said that it sent America’s first detainee from its counter-Islamic State campaign into the custody of the Kurdish Regional Government. The Wall Street Journal’s Gordon Lubold broke the story. The move—involving Umm Sayyaf, wife of the alleged former “oil and gas emir” for ISIS, Abu Sayyaf, who was killed in a daring U.S. special forces raid inside Syria that reportedly netted a trove of intelligence on the terrorist group—sets a new precedent for a war that’s expected to last for years to come, Defense One’s Molly O’Toole writes.
NSC spokesman spokesman Alistair Baskey to Defense One: “We have a firm belief that she will be held to account for her crimes, though we cannot guarantee any particular result. We stand ready to cooperate with authorities in Iraq to support a prosecution through to its completion, to assist in ensuring that justice is served.”
U.S. authorities had been preparing charges against her for a possible prosecution in the United States, but Baghdad opposed this, citing its constitutional ban on handing citizens to other countries’ authorities, Lubold writes.
“Umm Sayyaf was located and held in Erbil,” Baskey told O’Toole. “We work closely with the Kurdistan Regional Government authorities and for various reasons, including the location of potential witnesses, it made sense to transfer her to the custody of Iraqi authorities in Erbil.”
Meanwhile in Syria, “The Pentagon can’t account for some of the Syrian fighters who went through its training program,” defense officials told WSJ’s Adam Entous on Thursday. “At least one member of the Pentagon-trained group was killed in the July 31 attack in northern Syria. Several others were injured, officials said. Other members of the Pentagon-trained group ‘scattered’ in different directions after the Nusra attack. Some of them were captured, apparently by Nusra. Others are ‘status unknown’ and may resurface later, a senior defense official said.”
With the Turkish air force expected to escalate its fight against ISIS and PKK militants in the coming days, The Aviationist’s David Cenciotti this brief photo explainer of the Turkish F-16s doing Ankara’s heavy lifting.
And the U.S. and Russia agreed to support a UN Security Council resolution to find out who’s been using “chlorine and other chemical agents in Syria,” the New York Times reported from the sidelines of the ASEAN meeting in Malaysia.
Is an embattled Damascus signaling an opening for diplomacy to end its more than 4-year-old civil war? NYT’s Rick Gladstone says maybe, as “Syria’s government sent a high-level delegation on Thursday to Oman, the Persian Gulf state that historically has helped broker negotiations in regional conflicts.”
By the way: the U.S.-led counter-ISIS campaign marks its one-year anniversary tomorrow—and still U.S. “lawmakers haven’t authorized the fight,” Military Times’ Leo Shane III writes.
And ISIS claimed responsibility for the Thursday suicide bombing at a mosque in Saudi Arabia’s southern Asir region that killed more than a dozen people, the Washington Post reported.
National security a sideshow at GOP debate: In Cleveland last night, the leading Republican presidential candidates seemed most comfortable attacking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama and the Iran deal, and calling for increased defense spending, but largely stayed away from specific strategies, whether to defeat ISIS or better support veterans. From Mike Huckabee’s “The purpose of the military is kill people and break things” to Sen. Ted Cruz calling “nonsense” Gen. Martin Dempsey’s assessment “there is no military solution” to ISIS, and everything in between, read the natsec debate wrapup by Defense One’s Molly O’Toole.
Abrams, Apaches, F-16s, Ospreys, C-130s, C-17s, Green Berets, paratroopers—the U.S. Army threw everything but the kitchen sink into its training for a hybrid war like you might find on the battlefields of Ukraine or Yemen at its National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif., Thursday morning. Defense One’s Marcus Weisgerber was there, gathering photos and video of the action.
“The Army hasn’t forced its way into a country since it invaded Iraq in 2003, but its generals want aggressive world leaders to know that U.S. soldiers can still fight the big war,” Weisgerber writes.
“In my mind, this is also about deterrence,” Gen. Raymond Odierno, the Army chief of staff told reporters before the exercise began at dusk Wednesday.
Dozens of Army generals and senior Pentagon leaders, including Work and acquisition chief Frank Kendall, showed up, too—including Gen. Mark Milley, the incoming Army chief of staff. “This is something we probably want to do on an annual basis because of the difficulty of it and also to continue to show people we have the capability,” Odierno said. Read the full report right here.
From Defense One
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Mo’ robots, mo’ problems: The rush to automate more factory processes may look like it saves money, but security analysts say it’s a dangerous trend that’s spreading cyber vulnerabilities across entire industries. Defense One’s Tech Editor Patrick Tucker reports from the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.
How President Marco Rubio would undo the Iran deal. The Florida senator doesn't think Congress can block the nuclear agreement, which he thinks Tehran will disregard and exploit. So he explained to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg what he’d do if he gets to the Oval Office.
DoD wants a cyber arms dealer to hack its networks. The company, Endgame, is part of a legal but controversial industry that sells hacking tools called zero days to governments looking to uncover their own vulnerabilities. Nextgov’s Aliya Sternstein has the story.
ICYMI: Obama nominates new Pentagon intel chief. For months, Marcel Lettre has been waiting to succeed Michael Vickers and James Clapper as the defense undersecretary for intelligence. He’s been the “acting,” after all. President Obama sent his formal nomination on Wednesday. A defense official points out to Defense One that Lettre has served four defense secretaries, “playing key behind the scenes roles in strategic challenges and getting the Pentagon to focus more on the warfighter.” Lettre was Leon Panetta’s deputy chief of staff, and led the transition teams from Robert Gates to Panetta, and Panetta to Chuck Hagel. Before that, he was principal DASD for legeslative affairs, a job he got after working as senior advisor to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and on the House intelligence committee.
“He was on the Hill for seven years, and started tenure in DoD in Legislative Affairs so [he] knows well the role of Congress in ensuring strong intelligence capabilities, which will be important in the years to come. He served well as Mike Vickers’ principal deputy and is best positioned to carry the torch forward.”
Vickers, like all intelligence leaders these days, inherits an office that finds itself more and more central to the widening U.S. counterterrorism war. He’ll work closely with the brand-spanking-new Defense Intelligence Agency chief, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, who gave made his first public appearance last week at a dinner for INSA, the intelligence community’s professional association.
Farewell to Jon Stewart, crusader for veterans. Air Force Times’ Kevin Lilley compiles clips of the outgoing Daily Show host casting ascerbic sunlight on bureaucracy that stood between veterans and medical care. Paul Reickhoff, head of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, offered this encomium to Stewart: “I don't think there’s a person in the media who’s done more to elevate veterans’ issues, and to push for policy change.”