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Category Archives: civilian casualties
Genocide in the Empire of Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook failed to quickly stop the spread of hate speech and misinformation against the Rohingya people, in turn contributing to the persecution and alleged genocide of the minority community in Myanmar, according to a lawsuit filed in December 2021 in a California court that asks for more than $150 billion in compensation.
The class-action lawsuit against Meta, Facebook's parent company, was brought by a Rohingya woman in Illinois on behalf of the 10,000-plus Rohingya refugees who have resettled in the United States since 2012. It alleges that Facebook's algorithm amplified hate speech and that the company neglected to remove inflammatory content despite repeated warnings that such posts could foment ethnic violence.
A similar complaint against the tech giant is expected to be filed in a British court.
Myanmar's military launched a "scorched-earth campaign" in 2017 to push Rohingya residents, who are mostly Muslim, out of Rakhine state. Some 750,000 Muslim men, women and children were driven out in a campaign of rape, murder and razed villages that a top United Nations official called a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing." That year, Doctors Without Borders estimated that at least 6,700 Rohingya people had been killed as a result of the attacks. Around the same time, influential figures such as nationalist monks and top government officials posted or recirculated slurs against the Rohingya, while spreading falsehoods and doctored images that suggested some Rohingya burned their own villages and then blamed it on Myanmar security forces. Myanmar has denied the genocide accusations and has justified some actions on counterterrorism grounds.
In 2018, a U.N. report connected Facebook to the atrocities against the Rohingya people. According to the report:
"Facebook has been a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate, in a context where, for most users, Facebook is the Internet. Although improved in recent months, the response of Facebook has been slow and ineffective. The extent to which Facebook posts and messages have led to real-world discrimination and violence must be independently and thoroughly examined."
After the publication of the UN Report, the region became a priority for the company, which began flooding it with resources in 2018… The platform said that it removed some 64,000 pieces of content in Myanmar that violated its policies against hate speech…"Not until 2018 — after the damage had been done — did Facebook executives … meekly admit that Facebook should and could have done more," the lawsuit alleges. "Facebook is like a robot programed with a singular mission: to grow. And the undeniable reality is that Facebook's growth, fueled by hate, division, and misinformation, has left hundreds of thousands of devastated Rohingya lives in its wake."….
Backed by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Gambia asked a U.S. court to force Facebook to turn over data related to accounts it deleted in 2018 that fueled atrocities in Myanmar. After some legal wrangling, a federal judge in D.C. shot down the request on December 3, 2021.
Excerpt from Amy Cheng, Rohingya refugees sue Facebook for $150 billion, alleging it helped perpetuate genocide in Myanmar, Washington Post, Dec. 7, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Human Rights, War and tagged Facebook and genocide, Facebook and hate speech, Facebook and Rohingya ethnic cleansing, facebook divisive content, facebook divisiveness, facebook exploitation human brain, facebook hate, facebook mobs, Myanmar, Myanmar and human rights, Myanmar and Rohingya, Rohingya genocide on January 6, 2022 by Stoa.
To Save the Congo Rainforest, We Must Save the People First
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the Democratic Republic of the Congo told the Security Council in December 2021 that "a lasting solution" to the violence" in Congo requires a broader political commitment to address the root causes of conflict." Bintou Keita argued that, for stability to return to eastern Congo, "the State must succeed in restoring and maintaining the confidence of the people in state's ability to protect, administer, deliver justice and meet their basic needs."
Starting on November 30, 2021 the Congolese Armed Forces initiated joint military operations with the Ugandan army against the rebel Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in the east. In May 2021, the Congolese authorities declared a state of siege in the provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, whose duration has just been extended for the 13th time.
But the challenges facing the Government in implementing the state of siege highlight "the limits of a strictly military approach to the protection of civilians and the neutralization of armed groups." In fact, the period of the state of siege saw a 10 per cent increase in the number of violations and abuses of human rights in the country.
According to the Special Representative, the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate in the restive east, due to insecurity, epidemics, and limited access to basic services. The number of internally displaced people stands at nearly 6 million, of which 51 per cent are women. This is the highest number of internally displaced people in Africa.
The Special Representative pointed out the illegal exploitation of natural resources as "a major driver of conflict", saying it must be addressed, and commended President Tshisekedi's intervention at the COP26 Summit, where he committed to combat deforestation in the Congo Basin rainforest and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 21 per cent, by 2030….
Excerpts from DR Congo: Limitations to 'strictly military approach' to stem violence, mission chief warns, UN News, Dec. 6, 2021
This entry was posted in biodiversity, civilian casualties, corruption/Illegal markets, covert action, Environment, indigenous peoples, War and tagged Congo atrocities, Congo corruption, Congo minerals, Congo rainforest, Congo's rainforest, corruption Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, human rights Congo, mass graves Congo, MONUSCO, UN Peacekeeping, United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, United Nations peacekeeping on December 21, 2021 by Stoa.
A Humane Bombing Campaign? the Baghuz Strike
In the last days of the battle against the Islamic State in Syria, when members of the once-fierce caliphate were cornered in a dirt field next to a town called Baghuz, a U.S. military drone circled high overhead, hunting for military targets. But it saw only a large crowd of women and children huddled against a river bank. Without warning, an American F-15E attack jet streaked across the drone's high-definition field of vision and dropped a 500-pound bomb on the crowd, swallowing it in a shuddering blast. As the smoke cleared, a few people stumbled away in search of cover. Then a jet tracking them dropped one 2,000-pound bomb, then another, killing most of the survivors.
It was March 18, 2019. At the U.S. military's busy Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, uniformed personnel watching the live drone footage looked on in stunned disbelief, according to one officer who was there. "Who dropped that?" a confused analyst typed on a secure chat system being used by those monitoring the drone, two people who reviewed the chat log recalled. Another responded, "We just dropped on 50 women and children."
The Baghuz strike was one of the largest civilian casualty incidents of the war against the Islamic State, but it has never been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. military. The details, reported by the New York Times on November 13, 2021, show that the death toll was almost immediately apparent to military officials. A legal officer flagged the strike as a possible war crime that required an investigation. But at nearly every step, the military made moves that concealed the catastrophic strike. The death toll was downplayed. Reports were delayed, sanitized and classified. United States-led coalition forces bulldozed the blast site. And top leaders were not notified.
The Defense Department's independent inspector general began an inquiry, but the report containing its findings was stalled and stripped of any mention of the strike. "Leadership just seemed so set on burying this. No one wanted anything to do with it," said Gene Tate, a former Navy officer who had worked for years as a civilian analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Counterterrorism Center before moving to the inspector general's office….
The details of the strikes were pieced together by The New York Times over months from confidential documents and descriptions of classified reports, as well as interviews with personnel directly involved, and officials with top secret security clearances who discussed the incident on the condition that they not be named. The Times investigation found that the bombing had been called in by a classified American special operations unit, Task Force 9, which was in charge of ground operations in Syria. The task force operated in such secrecy that at times it did not inform even its own military partners of its actions. In the case of the Baghuz bombing, the American Air Force command in Qatar had no idea the strike was coming, an officer who served at the command center said.
The only assessment done immediately after the strike was performed by the same ground unit that ordered the strike. It determined that the bombing was lawful because it killed only a small number of civilians while targeting Islamic State fighters in an attempt to protect coalition forces, the command said. Therefore no formal war crime notification, criminal investigation or disciplinary action was warranted, it said, adding that the other deaths were accidental.
But the Air Force lawyer, Lt. Col. Dean W. Korsak, believed he had witnessed possible war crimes and repeatedly pressed his leadership and Air Force criminal investigators to act. When they did not, he alerted the Defense Department's independent inspector general. Two years after the strike, seeing no evidence that the watchdog agency was taking action, Colonel Korsak emailed the Senate Armed Services Committee, telling its staff that he had top secret material to discuss and adding, "I'm putting myself at great risk of military retaliation for sending this."..
The United States portrayed the air war against the Islamic State as the most precise and humane bombing campaign in its history. The military said every report of civilian casualties was investigated and the findings reported publicly, creating what the military called a model of accountability. The details suggest that while the military put strict rules in place to protect civilians, the Special Operations task force 9 repeatedly used other rules to skirt them. The military teams counting casualties rarely had the time, resources or incentive to do accurate work. And troops rarely faced repercussions when they caused civilian deaths.
On the ground, Task Force 9 coordinated offensives and airstrikes. The unit included soldiers from the 5th Special Forces Group and the Army's elite commando team Delta Force, several officials said. Over time, some officials overseeing the air campaign began to believe that the task force was systematically circumventing the safeguards created to limit civilian deaths. The process was supposed to run through several checks and balances. Drones with high-definition cameras studied potential targets, sometimes for days or weeks. Analysts pored over intelligence data to differentiate combatants from civilians. And military lawyers were embedded with strike teams to ensure that targeting complied with the law of armed conflict. But there was a quick and easy way to skip much of that oversight: claiming imminent danger….By late 2018, about 80 percent of all airstrikes Task Force 9 was calling in claimed self-defense, according to an Air Force officer who reviewed the strikes. The rules allowed U.S. troops and local allies to invoke it when facing not just direct enemy fire, but anyone displaying "hostile intent,"… Under that definition, something as mundane as a car driving miles from friendly forces could in some cases be targeted…..
The aftermath of that approach was plain to see. A number of Syrian towns, including the regional capital, Raqqa, were reduced to little more than rubble. Human rights organizations reported that the coalition caused thousands of civilian deaths during the war. Hundreds of military assessment reports examined by The Times show the task force was implicated in nearly one in five coalition civilian casualty incidents in the region…Publicly, the coalition insisted the numbers were much lower. Privately, it became overwhelmed by the volume of civilian casualty claims reported by locals, humanitarian groups and the news media, and a backlog of civilian casualty assessment reports sat unexamined for months, two people who compiled the reports said…..
Excerpts from How the U.S. Hid an Airstrike That Killed Dozens of Civilians in Syria, NY Times, Nov. 13, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, War and tagged Baghuz strike syria, civilian casualties, civilian casualties Syria, civilian deaths, covert action Syria, covert operations, covert war, humanitarian law, laws of war, special forces, Special Forces covert operations, special forces Syria, special operation forces, special operations, special operations forces on November 16, 2021 by Stoa.
Eradicating Old Cities and their Populations
The fighters of Islamic State…raided the tombs of Assyrian kings in Nineveh, blew up Roman colonnades in Palmyra and sold priceless relics to smugglers. But their vandalism was on a modest scale compared with some of the megaprojects that are habitually undertaken by many Middle Eastern government… Iraq's government began to build the Makhoul dam. Once complete, it is likely to flood Ashur—and another 200 historical sites.
Similar archaeological tragedies have occurred across the region, mainly thanks to the appetite of governments for gigantism in the name of modernization…The re-landscaping displaces people as well as erasing their heritage, sometimes as a kind of social engineering….
Egypt's dictator, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has bulldozed swathes of Cairo, the old capital, to make way for motorways, flyovers and shiny skyscrapers that line the road to the new administrative capital he is building. To ease congestion he has scythed a thoroughfare named Paradise through the City of the Dead, a 1,000-year-old necropolis that is a un-designated world heritage site. Hundreds of tombs were destroyed. He has turfed out tens of thousands of people from their homes in Boulaq, along the Nile, calling it slum clearance. This was where Cairo's old port prospered in Ottoman times. Instead of rehabilitating it, Mr Sisi is letting property magnates carpet the area with high-rise apartment buildings. Mr Sisi has allowed investors from the United Arab Emirates to build a mini-Dubai on Cairo's largest green space, a nature reserve on al-Warraq island. Its 90,000 residents will be shunted off, mainly to estates on the city's edge. Protesters have been condemned as Islamist terrorists and sent to prison, many for 15 years…
Some rulers have security in mind when they bulldoze history. Mr Sisi can send in the tanks faster on wider roads. Removing Egypt's poor from city centres may curb the risk of revolution. "They know that poor areas revolted in 2011," says Abdelrahman Hegazy, a Cairene city planner. "They're afraid of population density." During Syria's current civil war, President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian patrons ruined parts of the old cities of Homs and Aleppo, treasure troves of antiquity that were also rebel strongholds, with relentless barrel-bombing….
Excerpts from Bulldozing history: Arab states are wrecking old treasures, Economist, Sept. 4, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, corruption/Illegal markets, Environment, Human Rights, indigenous peoples, power elite, property rights, War and tagged cultural heritage, cultural rights, erasing cities, social engineering, UNESCO World Heritage, world heritage in danger, world heritage sites on October 19, 2021 by Stoa.
How Does it Feel? Watching People Die from the Cold Comfort of a Computer Chair
A former intelligence analyst was sentenced on July 27, 2021 to nearly four years in prison after pleading guilty to giving classified information about the U.S. drone program to a reporter. Daniel Hale, a former airman in the U.S. Air Force assigned to intelligence operations and a onetime employee of the defense contractor Leidos, was given a 45-month sentence as well as three years supervised release by a Virginia federal judge. Mr. Hale was accused of giving numerous documents marked "Secret" and "Top Secret" to a journalist in 2014…
Mr. Hale has said he leaked the material because the public needed to know the full details about the U.S. drone program, which he believed led to unjustified civilian casualties and wasn't being described forthrightly by political leaders…In a letter filed with the court in advance of his sentencing, Mr. Hale recalled the first drone strike he witnessed against a handful of men drinking tea in Paktika province, Afghanistan—a group that included one suspected combatant and his companions.
"I could only look on as I sat by and watched through a computer monitor when a sudden, terrifying flurry of Hellfire missiles came crashing down," Mr. Hale wrote. "Since that time and to this day, I continue to recall several such scenes of graphic violence carried out from the cold comfort of a computer chair. Not a day goes by that I don't question the justification of my actions."
Excerpts from Ex-Military Analyst Gets 45-Month Sentence for Leaking Classified Drone Information, WSJ, July 28, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, War and tagged armed drones, body count drone strikes, bugsplats, double tap drone strikes, drone strikes Afghanistan, drones, drones and civilian casualties, drones CIA, Global Strike Program, Hellfire missiles, mistaken airstrikes, precise air strikes, surgical strikes, surgical strikes drones, United States drones, unmanned aerial system (UAS), unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), US airstrikes on July 29, 2021 by Stoa.
How to Detect Humans Under-the-Ground: Surveillance Best
Tunnel-digging in times of conflict has a long history. These days, secret tunnels are used to move weapons and people between Gaza and Egypt, and by Kurdish militia operating on the frontier between Syria and Turkey. But the same principle applies. What happens underground is hard for the enemy to observe. Digging for victory is therefore often a good idea…
That, though, may be about to change. Real-time Subsurface Event Assessment and Detection (RESEAD), a project being undertaken at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, uses novel sensors to make accurate maps of what is happening underground. This will, no doubt, have many civilian applications. But Sandia is principally a weapons lab…The sensors themselves are a mixture of accelerometers, which pick up vibrations, current detectors, which measure the electrical-resistance of rocks and soil, and subsurface radar…
Exactly how RESEAD sensors would be put in place in a zone of active conflict remains to be seen. But the system could certainly be useful for other sorts of security. In particular, America has a problem with tunnels under its border with Mexico being used to smuggle drugs and migrants into the country. RESEAD would be able to detect existing tunnels and nip new ones in the bud.
Excerpts from Tunnel Vision: How to detect the enemy when they are underground, Economist, June 24, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, corruption/Illegal markets, covert action, Espionage, Human Rights, War and tagged Bacillus subtilis and underground surveillance, Beishan Underground Research Laboratory, Beishan Underground Research nuclear waste Laboratory, government surveillance, surveillance of citizens, surveillance state, underground environment, underground urban spaces, underground war, Yeniseysky underground laboratory Russia on July 20, 2021 by Stoa.
The Killing Fad: Agile Drones
Drones built in Turkey with affordable digital technology wrecked tanks and other armored vehicles, as well as air-defense systems, of Russian protégés in battles waged in Syria, Libya and Azerbaijan. These drones point to future warfare being shaped as much by cheap but effective fighting vehicles as expensive ones with the most advanced technology. China, too, has become a leading war drone exporter to the Middle East and Africa. Iran-linked groups in Iraq and Yemen used drones to attack Saudi Arabia. At least 10 countries, from Nigeria to the United Arab Emirates, have used drones purchased from China to kill adversaries, defense analysts say.
Flying alone or in a group, these drones can surprise troops and disable poorly concealed or lightly defended armored vehicles, a job often assigned to expensive warplanes. The drones can stay quietly aloft for 24 hours, finding gaps in air-defense systems and helping target strikes by warplanes and artillery, as well as firing their own missiles. Militaries, including the U.S., are upgrading air-defense systems to catch up with the advances, seeking methods to eliminate low-budget drones without firing missiles that cost more than their targets. The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory is also developing Skyborg and Valkyrie, lower-cost autonomous aircraft that are part of an innovation program
Israel and the U.S. have long used high-end drones in counterterrorism operations to target prominent enemies. But the countries have hesitated to sell their top models, even to allies, for fear of proliferation…Technological advances and global competitors have produced inexpensive alternatives.
The standard-bearer of the latest armed-drone revolution emerged last year on the battlefields around Turkey, the Bayraktar TB2. Compared with the American MQ-9, the TB2 is lightly armed, with four laser-guided missiles. Its radio-controlled apparatus limits its basic range to around 200 miles, roughly a fifth of the ground the MQ-9 can cover. Yet it is utilitarian, and reliable—qualities reminiscent of the Soviet Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle that changed warfare in the 20th century. A set of six Bayraktar TB2 drones, ground units, and other essential operations equipment costs tens of millions of dollars, rather than hundreds of millions for the MQ-9…
Ukraine signed a deal in January 2019 to buy TB2 drones from Turkey, receiving at least six so far, and Kyiv is in talks for joint production. A Ukrainian company is manufacturing engines for the latest Baykar drone, a larger model with a heavier payload than the TB2. The country hopes the drones will discourage a repeat of the Kremlin's 2014 invasions. …Turkey's drone sales have riled Moscow. …
The TB2 was born of Turkey's dissatisfaction with available models from the U.S. and Israel, and the country's desire for systems under its control to fight the PKK, a Kurdish militant group….Azerbaijan, geographically and culturally close to Turkey, procured a set of TB2 drones last year. The country had lost control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region to Armenia in a war that ended in a 1994 cease-fire. Rising petroleum wealth had bolstered Azerbaijan's military in the years since. The TB2s, as well as Israeli-made drones, helped Azerbaijan overwhelm Armenian forces. Attacks were recorded for videos and posted online by Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry….
The Azerbaijan victory caught the attention of Turkey's suppliers. Some companies and countries, including Canada, halted export of components used in the TB2. [Too little too late?]
Excerpt from James Marson and Brett Forrest, Armed Low-Cost Drones, Made by Turkey, Reshape Battlefields and Geopolitics, WSJ, June 4, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, War and tagged armed drones, Bayraktar TB2 drone, body count drone strikes, drone surveillance, drones, drones and civilian casualties, drones gremlins, drones industry, drones Turkey, small drones, swarm drones, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on June 10, 2021 by Stoa.
Smart Weapons Who Make Many Mistakes: AI in War
Autonomous weapon systems rely on artificial intelligence (AI), which in turn relies on data collected from those systems' surroundings. When these data are good—plentiful, reliable and similar to the data on which the system's algorithm was trained—AI can excel. But in many circumstances data are incomplete, ambiguous or overwhelming. Consider the difference between radiology, in which algorithms outperform human beings in analysing x-ray images, and self-driving cars, which still struggle to make sense of a cacophonous stream of disparate inputs from the outside world. On the battlefield, that problem is multiplied.
"Conflict environments are harsh, dynamic and adversarial," says UNDIR. Dust, smoke and vibration can obscure or damage the cameras, radars and other sensors that capture data in the first place. Even a speck of dust on a sensor might, in a particular light, mislead an algorithm into classifying a civilian object as a military one, says Arthur Holland Michel, the report's author. Moreover, enemies constantly attempt to fool those sensors through camouflage, concealment and trickery. Pedestrians have no reason to bamboozle self-driving cars, whereas soldiers work hard to blend into foliage. And a mixture of civilian and military objects—evident on the ground in Gaza in recent weeks—could produce a flood of confusing data.
The biggest problem is that algorithms trained on limited data samples would encounter a much wider range of inputs in a war zone. In the same way that recognition software trained largely on white faces struggles to recognise black ones, an autonomous weapon fed with examples of Russian military uniforms will be less reliable against Chinese ones.
Despite these limitations, the technology is already trickling onto the battlefield. In its war with Armenia last year, Azerbaijan unleashed Israeli-made loitering munitions theoretically capable of choosing their own targets. Ziyan, a Chinese company, boasts that its Blowfish a3, a gun-toting helicopter drone, "autonomously performs…complex combat missions" including "targeted precision strikes". The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says that many of today's remote-controlled weapons could be turned into autonomous ones with little more than a software upgrade or a change of doctrine….
On May 12th, 2021, the ICRD published a new and nuanced position on the matter, recommending new rules to regulate autonomous weapons, including a prohibition on those that are "unpredictable", and also a blanket ban on any such weapon that has human beings as its targets. These things will be debated in December 2021 at the five-yearly review conference of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, originally established in 1980 to ban landmines and other "inhumane" arms. Government experts will meet thrice over the summer and autumn, under un auspices, to lay the groundwork.
Yet powerful states remain wary of ceding an advantage to rivals. In March, 2021 a National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence established by America's Congress predicted that autonomous weapons would eventually be "capable of levels of performance, speed and discrimination that exceed human capabilities". A worldwide prohibition on their development and use would be "neither feasible nor currently in the interests of the United States," it concluded—in part, it argued, because Russia and China would probably cheat.
Excerpt from Autonomous weapons: The fog of war may confound weapons that think for themselves, Economist, May 29, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, War and tagged armed drones, automated army, automated military, autonomous underwater vehicle, autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), autonomous underwater vehicles, autonomous weapons, drones, drones and civilian casualties, drones gremlins, drones helicopters, insect-like drones, lethal autonomous robotics (LARs), Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST), smart guns, smart weapons, surveillance drones, swarm drones, undersea autonomous torpedo on June 8, 2021 by Stoa.
A War Like No Other: the Covert Invasion of Iran
Within hours of Iran proudly announcing the launch of its latest centrifuges, on April 10, 2021, a power blackout damaged some of the precious machines at its site in Natanz…One thing reports seem to agree on is that an "incident" affected the power distribution network at Natanz.
Natanz is critical to Iran's nuclear program. The heavily secured site is protected by anti-aircraft guns and has two large centrifuge halls buried more than 50 feet underground to protect them from airstrikes. Despite the conflicting reports, it appears the facility's main power distribution equipment — Natanz has its own grid — was taken out with explosives. Backup emergency electricity also was taken down, and power cut out across the multibuilding compound, Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesperson for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told Iran's state-run TV.
A blackout may not sound that serious, but it can be at an enrichment plant. Centrifuges are slender machines linked up in what are called cascades which enrich uranium gas by spinning it at incredibly high speeds using rotors. The stress on the advanced materials involved is intense and the process is technically immensely challenging. A small problem can send a centrifuge spinning out of control, with parts smashing into each other and damaging a whole cascade.
The question is: what caused the blackout – a cyber-attack or a physical act of sabotage, like a bomb?
Israel has a long history of sabotaging nuclear facilities in Iraq, Syria, and Iran, both through cyber means — including the sophisticated Stuxnet attack against Iran, which Israel conducted with U.S. and Dutch intelligence agencies — and with conventional bombs and explosives. Israel is also reportedly behind a number of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and officials over the last decade. The Stuxnet attack was particularly significant because it launched the era of cyberwarfare, as it was the first cyberattack known to use a digital weapon that could leap into the physical realm to cause actual destruction of equipment. The highly skilled covert operation was conducted in lieu of a kinetic attack to avoid attribution and an escalation in hostilities with Iran; it remained undetected for three years..
Excerpts from Gordon Corera, Iran nuclear attack: Mystery surrounds nuclear sabotage at Natanz, BBC, Apr. 12, 2021, Kim Zetter, Israel may have Destroyed Iran Centrifuges Simply by Cutting Power, Intercept, Apr. 13, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Espionage, lawbreakers, Nuclear Energy, War and tagged assassination of nuclear scientists, covert action Iran, covert operations Iran, cyberattack Iran, Iran and China, Iran economic sanctions, Iran nuclear deal, Iran nuclear energy, Iran nuclear program, Iran nuclear weapons, Iran sanctions, Israel Stuxnet, natanz, Natanz nuclear facility, sabotage Iran nuclear program, sanctions against Iran, Stuxnet, stuxnet Dutch mole, Stuxnet Iran nuclear power plants, stuxnet North Korea, stuxnet United States, Stuxnet virus, Stuxnet worm on April 27, 2021 by Stoa.
It's Easy: How to Make a Radioactive Dirty Bomb
A truck carrying highly radioactive materials has been stolen by armed criminals in central Mexico the Independent reported on April 12, 2012. The Mexican government is now warning that anybody who comes in close contact with its deadly payload could be risking their lives. The individuals got away with an industrial inspection equipment truck during an armed heist on April 11, 2021 in the town of Teoloyucan. Included in the bounty is a QSA Delta 800 gamma ray projector that holds radioactive iridium-192, selenium-75 and ytterbium-169 isotopes — a highly unusual bounty for any hijacker.
It's still unclear why they targeted the truck in question, but during a previous robbery involving radioactive waste, Mexican authorities feared the ingredients may be used to build a dirty bomb. Contact with the contents of the truck, authorities emphasized, can be fatal. "At 10am today, there was a robbery of radiographic equipment reported," reads a warning issued by the National Commission for Nuclear Security and Safeguarding, as quoted by the Independent. "If the radioactive material is extracted from the container, is moved, or makes direct contact with any persons handling it, permanent injury can occur in minutes." "In case of making direct contact with the source over the course of hours or days, the effects can prove fatal," the warning reads. Even just being 30 meters away could cause radiation poisoning, according to the Commission.
Members of the Commission for National Civil Protection (CNPC) have been dispatched across the central region of Mexico. Authorities have not ruled out the possibility that the truck may now be in Mexico City….This is not the first time radioactive material has been stolen in Mexico.
Excerpt 'Extremely dangerous' radioactive material stolen in Mexico truck hijacking, Independent, Apr. 12, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, corruption/Illegal markets, covert action, Environment, hazardous waste, nuclear weapons, public health, War and tagged DARPA and dirty bombs, dirty bomb, disused radioactive sources, disused radioactive sources and nuclear waste, disused sealed radioactive sources (DSRS), stealing nuclear material on April 14, 2021 by Stoa.
The Nightmare of Keeping the Lights On
Some 330 million Americans rely on the nation's critical infrastructure to keep the country humming. Disruptions to electrical grids, communications systems, and supply chains can be catastrophic, yet all of these are vulnerable to cyberattack. According to the government's 2019 World Wide Threats Hearing, certain adversaries are capable of launching cyberattacks that can disrupt the nation's critical infrastructure – including electrical distribution networks.
In recognition of the disruptions cyberattacks can cause, DARPA in 2016 established the Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation and Characterization Systems (RADICS) program. The goal of RADICS has been to enable black-start recovery during a cyberattack. Black start is the process of restoring power to an electric substation or part of the grid that has experienced a total or partial shutdown without relying on an external power transmission network to get things back online…
"Cyberattacks on the grid can essentially do two things – make the grid not tell you the truth, and make the grid operate in an unexpected way," said Walter Weiss, the program manager responsible for RADICS. "For example, the grid could show you that a substation has power when in reality it does not. This could unintentionally prevent power restoration to an entire area since no one thinks there is a need to bring power back online. The technologies developed under RADICS help provide ground truth around grid status, giving responders the ability to quickly detect anomalies and then chart a path towards recovery."…
The RADICS testbed is comprised of miniaturized substations that were designed to operate as they do in the real world, but with safeguards to protect the system and those operating the substations. The substations are connected via power lines, forming a multi-utility crank path. With a crank path, power is generated to black start one utility that then powers the next utility and the next until the grid is fully restored.
DARPA substation, Plum island NY
Technologies to Rapidly Restore the Electrical Grid after Cyberattack Come Online, DARPA Website, Feb. 23, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, cyberwar, Energy, War and tagged cyber attack, cyber attack power grid, cyber intrusion, cyber weapons, cyberattack, cyberdefense, cybersecurity, cyberspace, cyberwar, cyberwarfare, cyberwarriors, cyberweapons, electricity grid, macrogrid, micro grids, microgrid, mini grids, power grid, power grids vulnerabilities, United States cyberattack on April 7, 2021 by Stoa.
The Horrors of Bombing: 50 Years After
In Cambodia, however, fertile land often signifies danger rather than abundance. When America dropped an estimated 1.8m tonnes of explosives on the country during the Vietnam war, those falling on hard ground generally detonated, whereas many landing on softer earth did not. No one knows how many bombs remain in rich soil. But a paper by four academics at Ohio State University who studied satellite images and reports by landmine-removal groups from a single village, found that perhaps half of the munitions have not exploded.
These wartime remnants have given the United States' bombing campaign of 1965-73—which ostensibly targeted Viet Cong supply lines, but caused perhaps 150,000 deaths—an enduringly lethal legacy. Since 1979, unexploded ordnance has killed at least 19,000 people in Cambodia (though some may have been blown up by landmines from subsequent wars, rather than by American bombs). Cambodia now has the world's highest rate of amputees.
A recent study by Erin Lin shows that America's bombardment injured not just Cambodia's people but its economy as well. She first interviewed farmers in the country, who said they thought that richer, darker soil presented an unusually high risk of hidden ordnance—especially in heavily bombed areas. They work in constant fear of explosions. Some said that they only planted crops in parts of their farms that they were confident contained no bombs, or that they used hand tools instead of machines to reduce the risk of detonation.
Excerpt from Blood and Soil: American Bombing 50 Years Ago Still Shapes Cambodian Agriculture, Mar. 20, 2021
This entry was posted in agriculture, civilian casualties, covert action, Environment, Human Rights, War and tagged BL-755 cluster munitions, bombs, cluster bombs, cluster munitions, Convention on the Prohibition of the Use StockpilingProduction and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, land mines, landmines, minefields of cluster bombs, munitions, remotely activated mines, treaty banning cluster bombs on March 31, 2021 by Stoa.
Gorillas, Murders and Making $1.50 per day-Congo Rainforest
Protecting the forests of Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo – home to endangered mountain gorillas – could be described as one of the toughest jobs on the planet. In the past 12 months, more than 20 of the park's staff have been murdered – and last week rebels were accused of killing the Italian ambassador to DR Congo, his security guard and driver in an attack within the park. "The level of sacrifice that's involved in keeping this work going will always be the hardest thing to deal with," says Emmanuel de Merode, who is in charge of more than 800 rangers at Virunga, Africa's oldest and largest national park.
The Virunga park spans 7,800 sq km (3,000 sq miles) and is home to an astonishingly diverse landscape – from active volcanoes and vast lakes to rainforest and mountains.
The park was set up nearly 100 years ago to protect mountain gorillas, of which there are only 1,000 left in the world. It's a national park which is part of the Congolese state which has been affected by civil war for the most of its recent history.
In April 2020, 13 rangers were murdered in what park officials described as a "ferociously violent and sustained" attack by an armed group In January 2021, six rangers, patrolling the park's boundary on foot, were killed in an ambush by militias. All of those who died were aged between 25 and 30. It's a national park which is part of the Congolese state which has been affected by civil war….
It's estimated that a dozen or so armed militia groups survive off the park's resources – poaching or chopping down wood to sell for fuel. DR Congo's natural resources have been fought over for decades. The country – which is the size of mainland western Europe – has more mineral wealth, with diamonds, oil, cobalt and copper, than anywhere else on the planet. These are some of the elements essential to modern technology, making up key components in electric cars and smartphones.
Virunga is no different. It's rich in resources underground as well as in nature and wildlife. But the two million people living in the region of the park mainly live on under $1.50 (£1.08) a day. This tussle for survival is not lost on Mr De Merode who sees protecting the park as essentially a social justice issue.
"It's not a simple problem of protecting gorillas and elephants; it is overcoming an economic problem at the heart of one of the most horrific civil wars in history," says Merode.
Excerpt from Vivienne Nunis and Sarah Treanor, DR Congo's Virunga National Park: The deadly job of protecting gorillas, BBC, Mar. 4, 2021
This entry was posted in biodiversity, civilian casualties, corruption/Illegal markets, endangered species, Environment, Human Rights, indigenous peoples, lawbreakers, property rights and tagged Congo atrocities, Congo corruption, Congo minerals, Congo rainforest, Congo's rainforest, corruption Congo, endangered gorillas, endangered species, gorillas, human rights Congo, mass graves Congo, Messok Dja national park Congo, national parks Congo, resource curse, resource curse congo, United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Virunga National Park Congo on March 9, 2021 by Stoa.
At Gunpoint in Congo: Is Coltan Worse than Oil?
Tantalum, a metal used in smartphone and laptop batteries, is extracted from coltan ore. In 2019 40% of the world's coltan was produced in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to official data. More was sneaked into Rwanda and exported from there. Locals dig for the ore by hand in Congo's eastern provinces, where more than 100 armed groups hide in the bush. Some mines are run by warlords who work with rogue members of the Congolese army to smuggle the coltan out.
When demand for electronics soared in the early 2000s, coltan went from being an obscure, semi-valuable ore to one of the world's most sought-after minerals. Rebels fought over mines and hunted for new deposits. Soldiers forced locals to dig for it at gunpoint. Foreign money poured into Congo. Armed groups multiplied, eager for a share.
Then, in 2010, a clause in America's Dodd-Frank Act forced American firms to audit their supply chains. The aim was to ensure they were not using minerals such as coltan, gold and tin that were funding Congo's protracted war. For six months mines in eastern Congo were closed, as the authorities grappled with the new rules. Even when they reopened, big companies, such as Intel and Apple, shied away from Congo's coltan, fearing a bad press.
The "Obama law", as the Congolese nickname Dodd-Frank, did reduce cash flows to armed groups. But it also put thousands of innocent people out of work. A scheme to trace supply chains known as ITSCI run by the International Tin Association based in London and an American charity, Pact, helped bring tentative buyers back to Congo. ITSCI staff turn up at mining sites to see if armed men are hanging about, pocketing profits. They check that no children are working in the pits. If a mine is considered safe and conflict-free, government agents at the sites put tags onto the sacks of minerals. However, some unscrupulous agents sell tags on the black market, to stick on coltan from other mines. "The agents are our brothers," Martin says. It is hard to police such a violent, hilly region with so few roads. Mines are reached by foot or motorbike along winding, muddy paths.
For a long time those who preferred to export their coltan legally had to work with itsci, which held the only key to the international market. Miners groaned that itsci charged too much: roughly 5% of the value of tagged coltan. When another scheme called "Better Sourcing" emerged, Congo's biggest coltan exporter, Société Minière de Bisunzu, signed up to it instead.
Excerpts from Smugglers' paradise: Congo, Economist, Jan. 23, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Energy, Environment, Human Rights, indigenous peoples, lawbreakers, Markets, property rights, public health, War, water resources and tagged artisanal mining DR Congo, blood diamonds, China and Congo, China Congo, coltan ore Congo, coltan worse than oil, conflict minerals, conflict minerals and COVID-19, congo, Congo atrocities, Congo corruption, Congo minerals, Congo rainforest, Congo uranium, corruption Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, diamond trade, human rights Congo, Kasai Congo rebellion, mass graves Congo, national parks Congo, resource curse, resource curse congo, resource exploitation, United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on February 18, 2021 by Stoa.
A Worldwide Web that Kills with Success
Doubts are growing about the satellites, warships and other big pieces of hardware involved in the command and control of America's military might. For the past couple of decades the country's generals and admirals have focused their attention on defeating various forms of irregular warfare. For this, these castles in the sky and at sea have worked well. In the meantime, however, America's rivals have been upgrading their regular forces—including weapons that can destroy such nodes of power. Both China and Russia have successfully blown up orbiting satellites. And both have developed, or are developing, sophisticated long-range anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles.
As a result, America is trying to devise a different approach to C2, as command and control is known in military jargon. The Department of Defense has dubbed this idea "Joint All-Domain Command and Control", or JADC2. It aims to eliminate vulnerable nodes in the system (e.g., satellites) by multiplying the number of peer-to-peer data links that connect pieces of military hardware directly to one another, rather than via a control center that might be eliminated by a single, well-aimed missile.
The goal, officials say, is to create a network that links "every sensor and every shooter". When complete, this will encompass sensors as small as soldiers' night-vision gear and sonar buoys drifting at sea, and shooters as potent as ground-based artillery and aerial drones armed with Hellfire missiles.
One likely beneficiary of the jadc2 approach is Anduril Industries, a Californian firm…Its products include small spy helicopter drones; radar, infrared and optical systems constructed as solar-powered towers; and paperback-sized ground sensors that can be disguised as rocks…
Sensors come in still-more-diverse forms than Anduril's, though. An autonomous doglike robot made by Ghost Robotics of Philadelphia offers a hint of things to come. In addition to infrared and video systems, this quadruped, dubbed v60 q-ugv, can be equipped with acoustic sensors (to recognise, among other things, animal and human footsteps), a millimetre-wave scanner (to see through walls) and "sniffers" that identify radiation, chemicals and electromagnetic signals. Thanks to navigation systems developed for self-driving cars, v60 q-ugv can scamper across rough terrain, climb stairs and hide from people. In a test by the air force this robot was able to spot a mobile missile launcher and pass its location on directly to an artillery team…
Applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to more C2 processes should cut the time required to hit a target. In a demonstration in September 2020, army artillery controlled by AI and fed instructions by air-force sensors shot down a cruise missile in a response described as "blistering"…
There are, however, numerous obstacles to the success of all this. For a start, developing unhackable software for the purpose will be hard. Legions of machines containing proprietary and classified technologies, new and old, will have to be connected seamlessly, often without adding antennae or other equipment that would spoil their stealthiness…America's technologists must, then, link the country's military equipment into a "kill web" so robust that attempts to cripple it will amount to "trying to pop a balloon with one finger", as Timothy Grayson, head of strategic technologies at DARPA, the defense department's main research agency, puts it…
Excerpts from The future of armed conflict: Warfare's worldwide web, Economist, Jan. 9, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, cyberwar, Espionage, War and tagged artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and war, cyberattack, cyberwarfare, JADC2, Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC), peer-to-peer military networks, U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), unhackable software, US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), US Special Operations Command on January 28, 2021 by Stoa.
Are Hypersonic Weapons Hyped Propaganda?
The United States, Russia, and China are developing an array of hypersonic weapons—maneuverable vehicles that carry warheads through the atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound. The countries and their defense agencies, such as DARPA, claim that these weapons outperform existing missiles in terms of delivery time and evasion of early warning systems. New research, however, shows that these weapons travel intercontinental distances more slowly than comparable ballistic missiles flying depressed trajectories, and that they remain visible to existing space-based
sensors for the majority of flight. Fundamental physical limitations imposed by low-altitude atmospheric flight render hypersonic missiles an evolutionary—not revolutionary— development relative to established ballistic missile technologies.
Misperceptions of hypersonic weapon performance have arisen from social processes by which the organizations developing these weapons construct erroneous technical facts favoring continued investment in such weapons.
Excerpt from from Cameron L. Tracy and David Wright, Modeling the Performance of Hypersonic Boost-Glide Missiles, SCIENCE & GLOBAL SECURITY, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Environment, Space, War and tagged Avangard Russia hypersonic weapon, ballistic missiles v. hypersonic missiles, Dongfeng-17 hypersonic weapon China, export denial of hypersonic weapons, gliders, Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor network, hypersonic cruise missile (HCM), hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), hypersonic gliders, hypersonic weapons, Kinzhal hypersonic weapon, speed of sound on January 19, 2021 by Stoa.
Above-the-Speed-of Sound: US Hypersonic Weapons
From the DARPA Website: DARPA's Operational Fires (OpFires) program, which is developing a ground-launched intermediate-range hypersonic weapons system, is advancing to a new phase. This new phase involves full-scale missile fabrication, assembly, and flight testing from a launch vehicle. It will be be produced by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control…OpFires aims to demonstrate a novel system enabling hypersonic boost glide weapons to rapidly and precisely hit critical, time-sensitive targets while penetrating modern enemy air defenses.
DARPA's Operational Fires Ground-Launched Hypersonics Program Enters New Phase, Jan. 11, 2021
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Markets, Space, War and tagged Avangard Russia hypersonic weapon, ballistic missiles v. hypersonic missiles, Dongfeng-17 hypersonic weapon China, export denial of hypersonic weapons, hyper-accurate picture of battlefield, Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor network, hypersonic cruise missile (HCM), hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), hypersonic gliders, hypersonic weapons, Kinzhal hypersonic weapon on January 14, 2021 by Stoa.
How to Denude a Country: Military Invasions Dressed Up As Revolutions
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."said Winston Churchill…Deception is still practiced in war.
In its conflict with Azerbaijan, Armenia has bamboozled drones with dummy missiles. During a stand-off with India, China published images of missile launchers that, on closer inspection, turned out to be wobbly inflatables. Indian and Chinese forces alike covered equipment with multispectral nets, which block visible light and other electromagnetic emissions. Engineers keep working on new gadgets. BAE Systems, a defense firm, boasts that its Adaptiv camouflage—a set of thermoelectric tiles that change temperature to match their surroundings—amounts to a "cloak of invisibility".
European and American military officials describe Russian and Chinese practices with a mixture of distaste and envy. Whereas America's use of decoys "is currently at a low after two decades of neglect", notes Walker Mills, an officer in the us Marine Corps, China has invested in them, including a 35kg tank that fits in a backpack and inflates in four minutes. One report by America's army says that Chinese forces "have the highest fidelity decoys seen to date".
The laws of armed conflict are fairly clear about battlefield deception. Whereas "perfidy" (such as faking surrender to lure an enemy into an ambush, or disguising a tank as a Red Cross ambulance) is forbidden, "ruses" like decoys, feints and ambushes are fair game. But other laws can be bent or bypassed. Russia snatched Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 by cleverly using unmarked personnel—the so-called little green men—and a synchronized blitz of disinformation. The entire campaign was a deception: an invasion masquerading as a nationalist uprising.
Western armies want to catch up, in some ways at least. "We'll re-learn deception," promises General David Berger, head of America's Marine Corps, who is reforming his force to better evade Chinese sensors in the Pacific. But this cuts against the grain. "There's a cultural problem here," says a veteran cia officer who specialized in deception. "I do think you'll find generals who would feel that it's fundamentally not a very respectable activity."
Excerpt from Military Deception: Bodyguard of Lies, Economist, Dec. 19, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Espionage, War and tagged adaptiv camouflage war, BAE systems, covert war, deception in war, decoys in war, disinformation campaign, Espionage, inflatable tanks decoys war, laws of war, little green men russia ukraine crimea on January 7, 2021 by Stoa.
The Extra-Ordinary Killing of 2020
A satellite-controlled machine gun with "artificial intelligence" was used to kill in November 2020, Iran's top nuclear scientist. According to Iran, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was driving on a highway outside Iran's capital Tehran with a security detail of 11 guards on November 27, 2020 when the machine gun "zoomed in" on his face and fired 13 rounds. The machine gun was mounted on a Nissan pickup and focused only on Fakhrizadeh's face in a way that his wife, despite being only 25 centimetres away, was not shot…According to Iran, the machine gun was being "controlled online" via a satellite and used an "advanced camera and artificial intelligence" to make the target.
Excerpt from Nuclear scientist killed by satellite-controlled machine gun that "zoomed in" on his face, Iran says, CBS News, Dec. 7, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, War and tagged assassination of nuclear scientists, Iran nuclear energy, Iran nuclear program, Iran nuclear weapons, Iran sanctions on January 5, 2021 by Stoa.
Saving Lives (if you can): Conflict Minerals and Covid-19
The Dodd-Frank Section 1502 forces manufacturers to disclose if any of their products contain "conflict minerals" mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and nine adjoining countries in Africa. Under the law, companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges must audit their supply chains and disclose if their products contain even traces of the designated minerals—gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten—that might have been mined in areas controlled by warlords.
The provision was sold as protecting Congolese citizens from warlords who profited from the mining and sale of these minerals…Manufacturers spent about $709 million and more than six million man-hours attempting to trace their supply chains for conflict minerals in 2014. And 90% of those companies still couldn't confirm their products were conflict-free. Many decided to avoid the Congo region altogether and source materials from other countries and continents
When mining dropped off due to Dodd-Frank's effects, Congolese villages were hit by reductions in education, health care and food supply. In 2014, 70 activists, academics and government officials signed a letter blasting initiatives like the Dodd-Frank provision for "contributing to, rather than alleviating, the very conflicts they set out to address"…
Then there is the race for Covid-19 vaccines and related medical supplies. including ventilators, x-ray machines and oxygen concentrators that are manufactured by using "conflict minerals." The minerals restricted by the Dodd-Frank Act are frequently used in the composition and production of needles, syringes and vials necessary to transport and administer billions of doses of vaccines. The compressors used to refrigerate vaccines also use these minerals to function…Countries, such as China, which are not bound by Dodd-Frank, have access to Congolese tantalum that the U.S. lacks.
Excerpts from John Berlau and Seth Carter,  Dodd-Frank Undermines the Fight Against Covid, WSJ, Oct 28, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, corruption/Illegal markets, property rights, War and tagged artisanal mining DR Congo, conflict minerals, conflict minerals and COVID-19, Congo atrocities, Congo corruption, Congo minerals, corruption Congo, covid-19 and United States response, covid-19 medical supplies, Dodd-Frank Act, Dodd-Frank Act and conflict minerals, human rights Congo, mining and the Dodd-Frank Act on November 25, 2020 by Stoa.
Who is Afraid of a Nuclear Weapons Ban?
The United States is urging countries that have ratified a U.N. treaty to ban nuclear weapons to withdraw their support as the pact has reached the 50 ratifications needed and will enter into force on January 22, 2021. The U.S. letter to signatories, obtained by The Associated Press, says the five original nuclear powers — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — and America's NATO allies "stand unified in our opposition to the potential repercussions" of the treaty. It says the treaty "turns back the clock on verification and disarmament and is dangerous" to the half-century-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of global nonproliferation efforts.
"Although we recognize your sovereign right to ratify or accede to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), we believe that you have made a strategic error and should withdraw your instrument of ratification or accession," the letter says. The treaty requires that all ratifying countries "never under any circumstances … develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices." It also bans any transfer or use of nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices — and the threat to use such weapons — and requires parties to promote the treaty to other countries.
Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning coalition whose work helped spearhead the nuclear ban treaty, told The Associated Press Tuesday that several diplomatic sources confirmed that they and other states that ratified the TPNW had been sent letters by the U.S. requesting their withdrawal. She said the "increasing nervousness, and maybe straightforward panic, with some of the nuclear-armed states and particularly the Trump administration" shows that they "really seem to understand that this is a reality: Nuclear weapons are going to be banned under international law soon."…Fihn stressed that the entry into force of the treaty will be "a really big deal" because it will become part of international law and will be raised in discussions on disarmament, war crimes and weapons."And I think that over time pressure will grow on the nuclear-armed states to join the treaty," she said.
Excerpts from US Lobbies Against UN Nuke Treaty, Associated Press, Oct. 22, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Environment, nuclear weapons and tagged banning nuclear weapons, NPT, nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear non-proliferation treaty, nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear nonproliferation treaty, nuclear weapons, stigmatize nuclear weapons, treaty banning cluster bombs, treaty banning nuclear weapons, Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), UN treaty To Ban Nuclear Weapons on October 27, 2020 by Stoa.
China's Nuclear Triad: Land, Sumbarines and Bombers
Based on United States Report released in 2020 "Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China" by the Secretary of Defense, China's progress in upgrading its strategic bombers to carry nuclear payloads puts it on the cusp of achieving a "triad" of delivery systems ((1) land-launched nuclear missiles, (2) nuclear-armed submarines, and (3) aircraft delivered nuclear bombs). The development of a nuclear triad raises the long-term stakes in the complex relationship between Beijing and Washington. …The heavy emphasis on China's nuclear improvements will probably be used by the Pentagon to press lawmakers and the public to support the massive reinvestment already underway in modernized nuclear weapons. This includes the B-21 bomber, an $85 billion Ground Based Strategic Deterrent ICBM program and the $128 billion Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine.
China's defense ministry denounced the report as a document created with a "zero-sum-game mindset and Cold War mentality," saying that the U.S. had "misinterpreted" the country's nuclear policy and stirred up confrontation with Taiwan. "It's extremely wrong and China firmly rejects it." As part of President Xi Jinping's efforts to build a "world class" military by 2049, the Defense Department report said the People's Liberation Army has already achieved parity with or exceeded the U.S. in at least three key areas: shipbuilding, land-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles and integrated air defense systems.
While the country has one overseas military base, in the East African nation of Djibouti, China's government "is very likely already considering and planning for additional overseas military logistics facilities to support naval, air and ground forces…". China's current nuclear arsenal includes 100 silo or road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, as many as six Jin-class nuclear missile submarines capable of carrying 12 missiles each and a new air-refuelable H-6N long-range bomber. The bomber is an upgrade on a previous model and comes with a modified fuselage "that allows it to carry either a drone or an air-launched ballistic missile that may be nuclear-capable.
Excerpts from Anthony Capaccio, Pentagon Warns China Is Nearing a Milestone in Nuclear Weapons Buildup, Bloomberg, Sept. 1, 2020
China denounced the Pentagon report. According to Xinhua, the Pentagon report is crowded with anti-China hogwash. Fear-mongering over China has always been the Pentagon's trick to demand more appropriations from the U.S. Congress. A fabricated grave threat to world peace can also help Washington sell more weapons to its allies, and serves as an excuse for America's pursuit of global domination…While Washington is selling its latest "China-scare" fiction to the world, it is hard to overlook such facts that the United States spent more on military than 144 countries combined in 2018 and maintains nearly 800 military bases in over 70 countries.
Excerpt from Commentary: Lies, conspiracies behind Pentagon's China military report, Xinhua, Sept. 5, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Espionage, nuclear weapons, War and tagged air-launched ballistic missile, China Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), China and Africa, China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), China National Nuclear to Raise $2.6 Billion in IPO, China National Space Administration (CNSA), China satellite technology, china space program, China suppy chain, df-41s intercontinetal missile china, Djibouti China, H-6N bomber China, intercontinental ballistic missile, military satellites, nuclear deterrence, nuclear missiles, nuclear modernization, nuclear submarines China, nuclear triad on September 9, 2020 by Stoa.
Under Zero Trust: the U.S. Chip Resurgence
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched its Electronic Resurgence Initiative (ERI) to help reboot a domestic chip industry that has been moving steadily offshore for decades…. Program officials and chip industry executives foresee the emergence of a "5th generation of computing" based on current cloud infrastructure while combining AI, the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G wireless networks to deliver big data.
"The U.S. microelectronics industry is at an inflection point," Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, told the virtual ERI summit. After decades of offshoring of chip fabrication, packaging and testing capabilities, "How do we reverse this trend?" The Defense Department is expanding its technology base efforts by implementing a "step-by-step process for reconstituting the microelectronics supply chain," focusing on various segments of the semiconductor ecosystem, including memory devices, logic, ICs and advanced packaging along with testing and assembly.
"While DoD does not drive the electronics market," constituting only about 1 percent of demand, "we can drive significant R&D," ERI is advancing public-private partnerships that provide a framework for commercial innovation. The result would be "pathfinder projects" geared toward a renewal of U.S. chip manufacturing. As trade frictions with China grow, ERI is placing greater focus on ensuring the pedigree of U.S. electronics supply chain. "We need to find a path to domestic sources," said Lord.
While nurturing government-industry partnerships as part of an emerging next-generation U.S. industrial policy, this year's DARPA summit also emphasized chip standards and processes for securing fabs, foundry services, devices and foundational microelectronics. In that vein, U.S. officials stressed new chips metrics like "quantifiable assurance" to secure dual-use devices that could end up in weapons or an IoT device.
"Our interests to protect both the confidentiality and the integrity of our supply chain are aligned with commercial interests, and we will continue to work across government and industry to develop and implement our quantitative assurance strategy based on zero trust," said Nicole Petta, principal director of DoD's microelectronics office. The "zero trust" approach assumes no device is safe, and that all microelectronics components must be validated before deployment. The framework marks a philosophical departure from DoD's "trusted foundry" approach instituted in the 1990s, largely because "perimeter defenses" failed to account for insider threats…
DARPA Chip Efforts Pivots to Securing US Supply Chain, https://www.hpcwire.com, Aug. 24, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, cyberwar, Espionage, geoeconomics, Markets, War and tagged 5G patents, 5G technology, computer chips, DARPA and wireless network defense, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), dissolvable silicon electronics, dual-use equipment, dual-use materials, electronic resurgence initiative, electronic surveillance, electronic warfare, EW (electronic warfare), internet of things, offshoring, reshoring, semiconductor technologies, semiconductor wafers, transient electronics, trusted foundry, waveforms and electronic warfare, zero trust on September 2, 2020 by Stoa.
War and the Innocent Bystanders
During a visit to Tokyo in 2017, Donald Trump called on Japan to buy "massive" amounts of American weaponry. At the time, North Korea was testing new rockets regularly. For the Japanese government, buying Aegis Ashore, a pricey American missile shield, allayed both concerns. Not all Japanese, however, were happy with the purchase, especially in Araya, a quiet residential neighbourhood of low-slung homes next to the sea in Akita city—and the site of a proposed Aegis base.
Akita City, Japan
Jittery locals fretted about electromagnetic waves from the system's radar and debris from its rockets. They worried about becoming a target in a conflict, as the city's oil refineries were during the second world war. "Why, why here?" asks Sasaki Masashi, a retired railway worker and head of a neighbourhood council. "It says: 'Please attack us'," complains Sakurada Yuko, another anti-Aegis campaigner. They have collected signatures, harangued officials and voted against the ruling Liberal Democratic Party which unexpectedly lost a seat in Akita in elections to the upper house of parliament last year.
In June 2020 Akita received unexpected but welcome news: the government declared it was scrapping the $4.2bn purchase of Aegis Ashore. Kono Taro, the defence minister, cited the ballooning cost of ensuring that boosters did not fall on civilian property….
Excerpts from Anti-anti-missile systems, Economist, Aug. 15, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, nuclear weapons, Space, War and tagged aegis missile defense, anti-ballistic missile defense, anti-missile defense, ballistic missile defense, Ballistic Missile Defense system, ballistic missile submarines, ballistic missiles, ballistic missiles v. hypersonic missiles, japan missile defense, missile defense, missile warning, missiles on August 20, 2020 by Stoa.
How to Poison a Population: War and Persistent Oil Pollution
Oil pollution in Syria has been a growing concern since the 2011 onset of a civil war that has taken a toll on oil infrastructure and seen rival powers compete over control of key hydrocarbon fields. In the Kurdish-held northeast, a large storage facility in the Rmeilan oil field in Hasakeh province is of particular concern, according to the Dutch peace organisation PAX. [A River of Death, pdf] Oil leaks from the Gir Zero storage facility have been suspected since at least 2014, the latest in March 2020, it said in a June report. Thousands of barrels have leaked out into creeks in the area over the past five years, threatening the health and livelihoods of people in dozens of villages….
The major Rmeilan field controlled by the Kurdish administration, located near a US airbase, has been among the Syrian Kurds' most prized assets since regime forces withdrew early on in the war. But oil wealth comes at a heavy cost for livestock farmers
whose sheep and cows have died because they drank oil contaminated water.
Residents too suffer heavily from the pollution because of the foul odour of gas and crude oil wafting over the area… Compounding the situation, makeshift oil refineries have cropped up across the northeast in recent years, dumping oil waste in the waterways…These informal refineries receive oil from nearby fields and process it to provide benzine, gasoline and diesel to locals.
Excerpts from Delil SouleimanBlack waters: Oil spills pollute northeast Syria creeks
by Delil Souleiman, AFP, July 23, 2020
This entry was posted in agriculture, biodiversity, civilian casualties, corruption/Illegal markets, Environment, hazardous waste, Human Rights, Markets, public health, War, water resources and tagged oil concessions Somalia, oil pollution and war, oil spills, oil spills Nigeria, Syria CIA, Syria civil war, Syria civilian casualties, Syria intervention, Syria oil pollution on August 6, 2020 by Stoa.
The Worst Murderer: Jihadists or Governments?
Sahel: West Africa's most populous countries, along the Atlantic coast, have become vulnerable to the predations of jihadists spilling out of failing states farther north in the Sahel on the borders of the Sahara desert. Jihadists seized control of chunks of Mali in 2012 and were stopped from overrunning Bamako, its capital, only after thousands of French troops were hurriedly flown in. The insurgents have since pushed across the border into Niger and Burkina Faso. In those three countries alone, 4,800 people lost their lives in the conflict last year. Fully 1.7m people have been forced to flee their homes. Now the war is beginning to jump borders again, putting at risk some of Africa's fastest-growing economies, including Benin, Ghana and Ivory Coast.
This war in the Sahel has been growing rapidly. Ten times more people were killed last year than in 2014 (excluding deaths in north-eastern Nigeria, which faces its own jihadist insurgents). Two main jihadist groups are behind most of the fighting: the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), which is linked to al-Qaeda. These groups have extended their reach, even though thousands of international peacekeepers and local and Western soldiers have been deployed to stop them. France has sent some 5,100 troops to the Sahel, while the United States has provided another 1,200. In addition, the un has 15,000 blue helmets there, including about 350 Germans, plus 250 British soldiers who are soon to arrive. With American forces leaving Afghanistan, the Sahel will soon be the West's biggest combat zone.
Worse, the jihadists are expanding in three directions at once. To the south they threaten Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo. To the west there has been a spate of attacks in Mali close to its border with Senegal; and to the east with Nigeria's insurgent groups. The jihadists already have a "de facto safe haven in northern Mali", says General Dagvin Anderson, in charge of America's commandos in Africa. He frets that as they expand they will have more scope to plan attacks on American soil.
The weakness of governments and the feebleness of their public services are helping the jihadists. In the neglected hinterlands of the Sahel the rebels offer themselves as an alternate state, serving up sharia and medical aid. Moreover, the jihadists have been adept at exploiting ethnic faultlines, for instance between largely Muslim and seminomadic Fulani herders and more settled farming communities, which have their own armed groups of traditional hunters known as Dozos. =
Trade and commerce also provide an incentive for the jihadists to expand their reach. The migration corridor between Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast is the busiest in Africa. Jihadists cash in by taxing traders and smuggling stolen livestock, drugs and guns. The gold mines in Burkina Faso have become a target. Much of the gold is smuggled out through Togo, which officially exported seven tonnes of the metal to the United Arab Emirates in 2018, despite mining very little itself. Gold is also pulling jihadists towards Senegal…
But in 2020, more civilians in the Sahel have been killed by government soldiers than by jihadists, says José Luengo-Cabrera of the International Crisis Group (icg), a Brussels-based ngo. "When soldiers kill the head of the family, they almost throw his sons and nephews into the arms of bearded men in shorts hiding in the bush," one villager told Human Rights Watch, a global monitor. It says in the town of Djibo alone, in Burkina Faso, evidence suggests government forces have murdered 180 men—many of them were blindfolded and had their hands bound before they were shot. In Burkina Faso… citizens may feel safer living among terrorists than with their own country's security forces.
Governments in the region and some Western forces have made matters worse by supporting militias. In 2018 the French army allied itself with Tuareg militias from Mali to fight against ISGS. They clobbered the jihadists but also killed scores of civilians, aggravating ethnic tensions and fuelling recruitment by the insurgents….Above all, governments need to regain legitimacy by providing services and holding themselves to account. "It is not possible to win the war if there is not trust from the population," says Niagale Bagayoko of the African Security Sector Network…But good governance and decent services in the region are scarce. At a meeting of Sahelian leaders with Mr hard. In Burkina Faso alone, the jihadists have forced about 2,500 schools to close.
Excerpts from Jihad in the Sahel: Fighting a Spreading Insurgency, Economist, July 11, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, corruption/Illegal markets, covert action, Environment, geoeconomics, Human Rights, indigenous peoples, War and tagged al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Al Qaeda Somalia, ama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), Harkat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI), human rights abuses, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), Islamic State in the Greater Sahel, jihadist gangsters, jihadist Mafia, jihadists, Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), Sahara desert, sahel, Sahel region, terrorism, United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, United Nations peacekeeping, United States Army Africa (USARAF) on July 21, 2020 by Stoa.
Selling War Services: the Mercenaries
Despite a UN treaty banning mercenaries, their day is far from over. Some analysts think there are now more of them in Africa than ever. But can they ever be a force for good? ….In the years after most African countries gained independence, mercenaries were notorious for supporting secessionist movements and mounting coups.
Western governments have in the past winked at mercenary activity that served their commercial interests. But nowadays Russia is seen as the leading country egging on mercenaries to help it wield influence. It does so mainly through Wagner, ***whose founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is close to President Vladimir Putin.
Wagner has been hired to prop up a number of shaky African regimes. In Sudan it tried to sustain the blood-drenched dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. He was ousted last year after big protests. In 2018 hundreds of Wagner men arrived in the Central African Republic to guard diamond mines, train the army and provide bodyguards for an embattled president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra. In Guinea, where Rusal, a Russian aluminium giant, has a big stake, Wagner has cosied up to President Alpha Condé, who has bloodily faced down protests against a new constitution that lets him have a third term in office. In Libya, despite a un arms embargo, Wagner is reported to have deployed 800-1,200 operatives in support of a rebel general, Khalifar Haftar, who has been trying to defeat the UN-recognised government….
Mercenaries have three main advantages over regular armies. First, they give plausible deniability. Using them, a government such as Russia's can sponsor military action abroad while pretending not to. Second, they tend to be efficient, experienced, nimble and flexible. Third, they are cheaper than regular armies. Whereas soldiers receive lifelong contracts and pensions, mercenaries are often paid by the job..
***Other firms include Dyke Advisory Group (DAG) , OAM Middle East
See also The UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries
Excerpts from Soldiers of misfortune: Why African governments still hire mercenaries, Economist, May 30, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, corruption/Illegal markets, covert action, Espionage, Human Rights, Markets, War and tagged Dyke Advisory Group (DAG) private military, mercenaries, military contractors, military industry, private armies, private military companies, private military contractors, Private Military Firms, private security firms, private security firms and piracy, private security Nigeria, privateers, security firms on June 15, 2020 by Stoa.
Our Biggest Weakness: Weak Biodefenses + Malicious Viruses
The coronavirus that has killed over 180,000 people worldwide was not created with malice. Analysis of its genome suggests that, like many new pathogens, it originated by natural selection rather than human design. But …"Covid-19 has demonstrated the vulnerability of the US and global economy to biological threats, which exponentially increases the potential impact of an attack," says Richard Pilch of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. In theory, bioweapons are banned. Most countries in the world are party to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1975, which outlaws making or stockpiling biological agents for anything other than peaceful purposes. But some countries probably make them secretly, or keep the option close at hand. America accuses North Korea of maintaining an offensive biological-weapons programme, and alleges that China, Iran and Russia dabble in dual-use biolgical research (for peaceful and military usage) research. Toxins like ricin have also been bought and sold on shady recesses of the internet known as the dark web.
Germ warfare briefly rose to prominence in September 2001, when letters laced with anthrax spores were mailed to American news organisations and senators, killing five people. That was a wake-up call. Public health became part of national security. BioWatch, a network of aerosol sensors, was installed in more than 30 cities across America. But in recent years threats from chemical weapons, like the sarin dropped by Syria's air force and the Novichok smeared on door handles by Russian assassins, took priority.
Though the Trump administration published a national biodefence strategy in 2018, it shut down the National Security Council's relevant directorate and proposed cuts to the laboratories that would test for biological threats. Funding for civilian biosecurity fell 27% between fiscal years 2015 and 2019, down to $1.61bn—less than was spent on buying Black Hawk helicopters.
Yet many pathogens used as weapons tend to differ from respiratory viruses in important ways. Those like anthrax, caused by bacteria which form rugged and sprayable spores, but do not spread from human to human, have the advantage of minimising the risk of rebound to the attacker. With the notable exception of smallpox—a highly contagious and lethal virus that was eradicated in 1979 but preserved by the Soviet Union for use against America (but not Europe), and now exists only in two laboratories, in America and Russia—most biological weapons would therefore have more localised effects than the new coronavirus.
Even so, the slow and stuttering response to the pandemic has exposed great weaknesses in how governments would cope…demonstrating that every part of public-health infrastructure is either broken or stretched to the max. The centrepiece of America's biosurveillance programme, a network of laboratories designed for rapid testing, failed, says Mr Koblentz, while the national stockpile of face masks had not been substantially replenished in over a decade. Would-be attackers will take note.
In 2016 American intelligence agencies singled out genome editing as a national-security threat for the first time. Two years later a major study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine warned that synthetic biology, a potent set of methods for tinkering with or creating organisms, could, in time, be used to re-create viruses like smallpox or make existing pathogens more dangerous, such as resistant to antibiotics. In 2011 Dutch and Japanese scientists said that they had created a version of bird flu that could be transmitted between mammals by the respiratory route—an announcement that prompted the Netherlands to treat the relevant academic papers as sensitive goods subject to export controls.
In January 2020 Canadian scientists funded by an American biotech company used synthetic DNA from Germany to synthesise a microbe closely related to smallpox, indicating the ease with which it could be done. "If a potential bad actor pursues a weapons capability using sars-cov-2, the virus is now attainable in laboratories all around the world, and blueprints for assembling it from scratch have been published in the scientific literature."
The trouble is that biodefence has evolved slowly, says Dan Kaszeta, a former biological weapons adviser to the White House. Compact devices that can detect chemical threats and warn soldiers to don a gas mask have long been available. "That doesn't exist for anthrax or any of the other aerosol pathogens," says Mr Kaszeta. "Telling the difference between an anthrax spore and a bit of tree pollen is not something you can do in a couple of seconds."
Excertps from Biodefence: Spore Wars, Economist, Apr. 25, at 19
This entry was posted in biodiversity, civilian casualties, covert action, Environment, War and tagged biodefense, biohacking, biological covert war, biological threat, biological warfare, biological weapons, Biological Weapons Convention, Biosecurity, biosurveillance, chemical weapons Syria, Novichok nerve agent, novichok on door handles, recreate COVID-19, recreate viruses, ricin chemical weapon, sarin attacks Syria, smallpox as a weapon, synthetic biology on May 7, 2020 by Stoa.
Ethical Killing: Landmines
During the Gulf war of 1991, no fewer than 117,000 landmines were showered over Kuwait and Iraq by American planes. This barely dented the Pentagon's vast stockpile of 19m. Just under a quarter of the devices scattered in the path of Saddam Hussein's army were anti-personnel landmines (APLs), the sort that would soon be banned by the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention of 1997, widely known as the Ottawa treaty. The Ottawa treaty has 164 parties, all of which ban the production and use of APL (anti-vehicle mines, among others, are still allowed). America is not among them. When the treaty was finalised, America declined to join (other holdouts include China, Cuba, Iran, Russia and Syria).
Landmines have a number of military uses. They are typically used to channel opposing armies away from particular areas and into others. A minefield can force an enemy to turn, which exposes their flank and makes them especially vulnerable, says Vincent Brooks, a retired general who commanded American forces in South Korea in 2016-18. They can also be used to "canalise" the enemy, channelling attackers into unfavourable terrain, where they may be more exposed to concentrated artillery fire. …But landmines are reviled weapons, and not without good reason. "They're indiscriminate,"… Landmine casualties have fallen sharply over the years, but at least 2,000 people were killed or wounded by manufactured or improvised APLS in 2018, according to data collected by the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, a research group. Laying a mine can cost a few dollars; clearing one can require $1,000.
The Pentagon has an answer to this. It says that it only possesses, would only produce and would only use "non-persistent" landmines with the capacity to self-destruct or, failing that, to self-deactivate, with a battery losing its charge, within 30 days (some models can blow themselves up in as little as a few hours). It claims that such features are remarkably reliable. …"When the technology is brought into the battlefield, we see that the actual data doesn't match with the promises," says Erik Tollefsen, head of Weapons Contamination for the International Committee of the Red Cross. He says that impressive reliability rates are usually derived from tests in sterile conditions, and prove wildly exaggerated in practice. In 2002 a report by the Government Accountability Office, an agency that audits the federal government, noted that during the Gulf war one in 10,000 mines were expected to remain active, which would have produced 12 duds. The actual figure was almost 2,000.
Others argue that there are perfectly viable alternatives to APLs….In particular, remotely activated mines (rather than victim-activated ones) are allowed under the treaty if the person triggering the device has the would-be victim in sight, although this makes them harder to use at range and hostage to a breakdown of communications. In 2018 Finland—a late and reluctant signatory to Ottawa, given its long border with Russia—said it was developing a new, remote-controlled variety of anti-personnel "bounding" mine that leaps into the air and fires metal bullets downward.
Excerpts from Ethical Landmines: Watch Your Step, Economist, Feb. 15, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Environment, Human Rights, public health, War and tagged Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, anti-personnel mines, anti-vehicle mines, Convention on the Prohibition of the Use StockpilingProduction and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, landmines, Ottawa treaty landmines, remotely activated mines on March 19, 2020 by Stoa.
A Hypersonic Death: The Race to Develop Hypersonic Weapons
For decades, the U.S. military—and its adversaries—have coveted missiles that travel at hypersonic speed, generally defined as Mach 5 (5 times the speed of sound) or greater . Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) meet that definition when they re-enter the atmosphere from space. But because they arc along a predictable ballistic path, like a bullet, they lack the element of surprise. In contrast, hypersonic weapons such as China's waverider maneuver aerodynamically, enabling them to dodge defenses and keep an adversary guessing about the target.
The US Department of Defense (DOD) is leading a new charge, pouring more than $1 billion annually into hypersonic research. Competition from ambitious programs in China and Russia is a key motivator. Although hype and secrecy muddy the picture, all three nations appear to have made substantial progress in overcoming key obstacles, such as protecting hypersonic craft from savage frictional heating. Russia recently unveiled a weapon called the Kinzhal, said to reach Mach 10 under its own power, and another called Avangard that is boosted by a rocket to an astonishing Mach 27. China showed off a rocket-boosted hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) of its own, the Dongfeng-17, in a recent military parade. The United States, meanwhile, is testing several hypersonic weapons. "It's a race to the Moon sort of thing," says Iain Boyd, an aerospace engineer at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "National pride is at stake."
China's military sees hypersonic weapons (as well as cyberwarfare and electromagnetic pulse strikes) as an "assassin's mace": a folklore term for a weapon that gives an advantage against a better-armed foe. If tensions were to spike over Taiwan or the South China Sea, for instance, China might be tempted to launch preemptive strikes with conventional hypersonic weapons that could cripple U.S. forces in the Pacific Ocean.For now, maneuverability at hypersonic speeds makes the weapons nearly impossible to shoot down—unstoppable…
At hypersonic speeds, "You're flying under extraordinary conditions"—extreme velocities, forces, and temperatures. At hypersonic speeds "temperatures start to get high enough to worry about… A vehicle's survival requires resilient superalloys and ultra–high-temperature ceramics. And perhaps novel coolants…
Other nations are chasing the trio of leaders—or teaming up with them. Australia is collaborating with the United States on a Mach 8 HGV, and India with Russia on a Mach 7 Hypersonic Cruise Missile (HCM). France intends to field an HCM by 2022, and Japan is aiming for an HGV in 2026.
THE United States is largely defenseless against such weapons, at least for now, in part because it can't track them…To remedy that shortcoming, the Pentagon plans to launch hundreds of small satellites with sensors capable of tracking heat sources an order of magnitude cooler than rocket boosters. The full Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor network could be up and running by 2030, he adds. (The satellites would also be used to help guide U.S. hypersonic weapons.) Once you have such sensors, "we can find a way to build the interceptors…Interceptors could destroy a hypersonic vehicle either by colliding with it or by detonating a warhead nearby. But Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is also exploring using directed energy: lasers, neutral particle beams, and microwaves or radio waves.
Richard StoneJan, National pride is at stake.' Russia, China, United States race to build hypersonic weapons, Science, Jan 10, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, War and tagged anti-missile defense, Avangard Russia hypersonic weapon, ballistic missile defense, ballistic missiles, ballistic missiles v. hypersonic missiles, Dongfeng-17 hypersonic weapon China, export denial of hypersonic weapons, Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor network, hypersonic cruise missile (HCM), hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), hypersonic gliders, hypersonic weapons, Kinzhal hypersonic weapon, missile defense, missile systems, missile warning, missile-defense systems on February 26, 2020 by Stoa.
The Nightmare: Sabotaging 20 Million Nuclear Shipments
Nuclear and other radioactive material is hardest to protect when it is transported from point A to point B — more than half of the incidents of theft of radioactive material reported to the IAEA between 1993 and 2019 occurred while it was in transport.
Around 20 million shipments of nuclear and other radioactive material are regularly transported within countries and across borders each year. These materials are used in industry, agriculture and medicine, as well as in education. Some of them are also radioactive sources that are no longer useful, known as disused sources.
The aim of nuclear security during transport is to ensure that the material is secured throughout and that it is not used for criminal or malicious purposes. While the level of security differs depending on the sensitivity of the material, the fundamental elements of secure transport include physical protection, administrative measures, training and protection of information about the transport routes and schedule. In some cases, escort personnel may also need to be armed…
"During conversion of our research reactor from high enriched to low enriched uranium fuel, we had to transport highly radioactive spent reactor fuel from the site to the airport to be sent back to the original manufacturer, and we had to transport the new low enriched uranium fuel from the airport to the facility," said Yusuf A. Ahmed, Director of the Centre for Energy Research and Training in Nigeria, who was involved in the conversion project. "Although the transport time is only a few hours, there is a lot that can happen during that time, from simple traffic accidents to malicious interventions and sabotage of shipments."
While only around 30 countries use nuclear power and therefore have significant amounts of nuclear materials to transport, almost all countries use radioactive sources.
Excerpts from Inna Pletukhin, A Moving Target: Nuclear Security During Transport, IAEA Bulletin, Jan. 24, 2020
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Environment, hazardous waste, lawbreakers, Nuclear Energy, nuclear weapons, public health, trade-environment and tagged dirty bomb, disposal of radioactive waste, disused radioactive sources, disused radioactive sources and nuclear waste, disused sealed radioactive sources (DSRS), nuclear material transportation, nuclear waste transportation, shipment of nuclear materials, theft of nuclear material, theft of radioactive material on February 25, 2020 by Stoa.
Rivers of Crude Oil: the poisoned land of Iraq
A biological remediation pilot project seeking to enhance nature's own ability to clear up oil spills in Iraq's conflict-affected areas has been launched in Kirkuk, Iraq…This UNEP initiative seeks to harness naturally occurring soil bacteria as a powerful natural ally to decontaminate poisoned land. Over three years ago in summer 2016, the residents of Qayyarah—a small town of around 25,000 people, some 60 km south of Mosul—were caught in the line of fire as so-called Islamic State fighters torched nineteen nearby oil wells. So thick were the clouds of smoke, that people could not distinguish day from night for weeks in what infamously came to be known as the "Daesh winter". Rivers of crude oil flowed through Qayyarah's streets and into seasonal wadis as oil wells spewed tens of thousands of barrels of oil relentlessly for months. The specter of an even worse environmental catastrophe was heightened as the oil slick migrated to less than three kilometers from the Tigris River, Iraq's water lifeline.
Following an epic battle to control the oil fires that took nearly a year, North Oil Company, which manages the oil fields of northern Iraq, is currently collecting an estimated 20,000 tonnes of remaining oil waste in Qayyarah into around a dozen large pits. Progress, however, has been slow and pools of heavy viscous oil remain on the doorsteps of entire neighborhoods and households, who complain about the impacts of noxious fumes on their children's health.
"In some places, the layer of heavy oil is two to three meters thick, and long stretches of wadi channels are now effectively tarmac roads on which cars can be driven," observed Mohammed Dawood, head of Qayarrah oil refinery's environmental unit. Furthermore, Environment Ministry officials expressed concern that exceptionally heavy rains and flash floods of the 2018/19 winter season washed out oil from the holding pits into the Tigris River.
While oil production restarted in Qayyarah immediately after the conflict ended in June 2017, reaching currently an estimated 40,000 barrels per day, little has been done to clean up the conflict's toxic aftermath… The UN Environment Programme in collaboration with the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq delivered a four-day hands-on training workshop on remediation of oil spills by the use of bacteria in September 2019. "By adding nutrients from manure, bulking agents like wood chips and water, we are simply creating the ideal conditions for bacteria to thrive and speeding up the natural process of breaking down the oil,"
Excerpts from Microbes offer hope of cleaning up Iraq conflict's pollution legacy, UNEP Press Release, Oct. 23, 2019
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Energy, Environment, hazardous waste, Human Rights, public health, War, water resources and tagged burning oil wells, Daesh winter, Iraq hazardous waste, Iraq nuclear waste, Iraq oil, Iraq toxic waste, Iraq war, oil companies Iraq, oil spill Iraq, oil spills, oil waste, oil wells on October 29, 2019 by Stoa.
How to Shh! a Nuclear Accident: the explosion of a nuclear-powered cruise missile on August 8, 2019, Russia
Two days after the explosion of a suspected nuclear-powered cruise missile undergoing testing on Aug. 8, 2010 near Nyonoksa Russia, two monitoring stations nearest the site of the accident stopped transmitting data, Lassina Zerbo, who heads the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, told The Wall Street Journal. The Russian monitoring stations, called Dubna and Kirov after the places where they are located, were contacted immediately about the data disruptionl, and Russian officials responded that they were experiencing "communication & network issues."
The missile test, on a platform in Dvinsk Bay on the White Sea in northwest Russia, has been the subject of considerable speculation. President Trump has said it involved an advanced nuclear-powered cruise missile, which has been dubbed Skyfall by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and which Russia calls Burevestnik.
The manned monitoring stations are part of an international network of hundreds of stations set up to verify compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits nuclear weapons tests globally. Participating nations are responsible for running the stations…The stations are designed to monitor everything from seismic shifts to sound waves for signs of nuclear activity. The two stations that went silent in Russia are designed to measure radioactive particles in the atmosphere…Arms-control experts said the monitoring problem appears to be a Russian effort to conceal information about the accident and not an effort to hide evidence of a prohibited nuclear weapons test.
Excerpts from Russian Nuclear Monitoring Stations Went Silent After Missile Blast, WSJ, Aug. 19, 2019
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Environment, Nuclear Energy and tagged Andreyeva Bay Russia, cruise missile HAWC, cruise missiles, Kyshtym disaster, nuclear accident Arctic, nuclear accident Barents Sea, nuclear accidents, nuclear-powered cruise missile, nuclear-powered cruise missile Burevestnik, nuclear-powered cruise missile Skyfall, Nyonoksa radiation accident on August 20, 2019 by Stoa.
How to Prepare for Deadly Flu and Nuclear Fallout
Breakthroughs in the science of programmable gene expression inspired DARPA to establish the PReemptive Expression of Protective Alleles and Response Elements (PREPARE) program with the goal of delivering powerful new defenses against public health and national security threats. DARPA has now selected five teams to develop a range of new medical interventions that temporarily and reversibly modulate the expression of protective genes to guard against acute threats from influenza and ionizing radiation, which could be encountered naturally, occupationally, or through a national security event.
The program builds from the understanding that the human body has innate defenses against many types of health threats, but that the body does not always activate these defenses quickly or robustly enough to block the worst damage. To augment existing physiological responses, PREPARE technologies would provide a programmable capability to up- or down-regulate gene expression on demand, providing timely, scalable defenses that are proportional to anticipated threats. Service members and first responders could administer these interventions prior to threat exposure or therapeutically after exposure to mitigate the risk of harm or death.
Influenza: "Researchers working within the PREPARE program seek to improve rates of survival and recovery in catastrophic scenarios for which reliable and scalable countermeasures don't currently exist," said Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, the PREPARE program manager….Three PREPARE teams are pursuing multi-pronged approaches to influenza defense and treatment that use programmable gene modulators to boost the human body's natural defenses against influenza and also weaken the virus' ability to cause harm by directly neutralizing the viral genomes. If successful, their approaches would potentially protect against virtually all influenza strains — regardless of whether a virus is newly emergent or has developed drug resistance — and would provide near instantaneous immunity, in contrast to traditional vaccines. Additionally, the teams are designing their countermeasures so that they are simple to deliver — for example, as intranasal sprays — reducing the logistical challenge of protecting large numbers of people.A team led by DNARx LLC, under principal investigator Dr. Robert Debs, aims to develop a new DNA-encoded gene therapy that helps patients fight influenza by boosting the natural immune response and other protective functions of their nasal passages and lungs.
Radiation Hazard Symbol
Ionizing Gamma Radiation: Other PREPARE teams are pursuing treatments to protect the body from the effects of ionizing gamma radiation. In humans, radiation poisoning primarily affects stem cells in the blood and gut, yet existing treatments only help to regenerate blood cells, and only with limited effect. There is no possibility for prophylactic administration of these drugs, and most must be delivered immediately following radiation exposure to provide any benefit. There are no existing medical countermeasures for radiation damage to the gut…
A team led by the University of California, San Francisco, under principal investigator Dr. Jonathan Weissman, also aims to develop gene therapies to enhance resilience against ionizing radiation. The team's approach should result in an intravenous or orally available treatment that activates innate defenses in gut and blood stem cells for a period of several weeks.
A Dose of Inner Strength to Survive and Recover from Potentially Lethal Health Threats
New tools for programmable modulation of gene expression could yield enhanced resilience against influenza and ionizing radiation for service members and first responders, DARPA Press Release, June 27, 2019
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Environment, hazardous waste, Nuclear Energy, nuclear weapons, public health and tagged Avian influenza, bioengineered, bioengineered diseases, biological covert war, biological threat, biological warfare, biological weapons, Biological Weapons Convention, Crispr-Cas9 system, DARPA Biological Technologies Office, DARPA genetic engineering, DARPA Living Foundries, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), dirty bomb, gene therapy, H1N1 influenza vaccine, influenza, ionizing radiation, nuclear fallout, nuclear weapons testing, pandemic influenza preparedness framework, programmable gene expression on July 9, 2019 by Stoa.
If You Control Space, You Control Everything: Space as War Domain
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is looking to classify space as a domain for warfare in an attempt to deter China's growing military power. If NATO's proposal succeeds, the international alliance could move forward with the development and use of space weapons. According to NATO diplomats, the international organization is preparing to release an agreement that will officially declare space as a war domain. This means that aside from land, air and sea, space could also be used for military operations during times of war.
Although NATO's partner countries currently own 65% of the satellites in space, China is reportedly preparing to launch a massive project that involves releasing constellations of satellites in low Earth orbit. China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) is planning to put in orbit 150 or more Hongyun satellites by 2023. Some of these satellites will provide commercial services like high-speed internet while others would be controlled by the Chinese military. These militarized satellites can be used to coordinate ground forces and to track approaching missiles.
"You can have warfare exclusively in space, but whoever controls space also controls what happens on land, on the sea and in the air," according to Jamie Shea, a former NATO official. "If you don't control space, you don't control the other domains either."
Excerpts from Inigo Monzon , NATO Prepares For Space Warfare By Militarizing Low Earth Orbit, International Business Times, June 24, 2019
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, cyberwar, Espionage, Space, War and tagged china space program, collisions in space, militarization of space, military satellites, Outer Space treaty, Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space Treaty, satellite imagery, satellite launch vehicle, satellite technology, satellite tracking, satellites surveillance, satellites war, satlets, space as real estate, space as war domain, space control, space deterrence, space domain, space drones, Space Enabled Effects for Military Engagements, space enclosure, space fence, space firms, space intelligence, space lab Tiangong-2, space law, space mission, space navigational system, space planes, space program, space programs, space robotics, space sensors, space situational awareness, space surveillance, space surveillance telescope DARPA, space war, space weapons, spaceplane (XS-1), SpaceX, spy satellites, unmanned space vehicle on June 25, 2019 by Stoa.
The Real Nuclear Weapons Doctrine of the United States
The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff in mid-June 2019 briefly published the Pentagon's official doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons. The joint chiefs quickly pulled the document — Joint Publication 3-72, Nuclear Operations — from the public website. [But a public copy has been preserved] "Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability," the doctrine opines. "Specifically, the use of a nuclear weapon will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and create conditions that affect how commanders will prevail in conflict."
The joint chiefs published the nuclear document around the same time that the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published its annual 2019 report, detailing the world's atomic arsenals. At the start of 2019, Russia, the United States, and seven other countries possessed 13,865 nuclear weapons, SIPRI found. That represents "marked decline" from the 14,465 atomic weapons in world arsenals at the beginning of 2018, according to SIPRI….But the cuts could reverse. New START will expire in 2021 unless both parties agree to extend the treaty. "…
A senior U.S. intelligence official on May 29, 2019 accused Russia of secretly conducting nuclear tests in violation of an international treaty and the country's own moratorium on such tests….But the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C. was skeptical of the general's claim. "Ashley would only say that Russia had the 'capability' to conduct very low-yield supercritical nuclear tests in contravention of the treaty, a capability which Russia, China and the United States have long had. He did not say that Russia has conducted or is conducting such tests." Ashley's allegation is consistent with repeated attempts by Pres. Donald Trump, his administration and his allies in Congress to dismantle existing arms-control regimes by accusing Russia of violating them, thus justifying a U.S. withdrawal from the same regimes and clearing the way for a U.S. arms build-up.
The Trump administration echoed the administration of Pres. Barack Obama in accusing Russia of willfully violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, an accusation Russia has denied. The White House in February 2019 announced the United States' withdrawal from the treaty, which bans land-based, medium-range missiles in Europe.
There's irony in Ashley accusing Russia of violating the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which according to the Arms Control Association "prohibits any nuclear test explosions that produce a self-sustaining, supercritical chain reaction and creates a robust international verification regime." "The United States has signed but not ratified the treaty," the association pointed out. "The most effective way for the United States to enforce compliance with the zero-yield standard is for the Trump administration and the U.S. Senate to support ratification of the treaty and help to bring it into force, which would allow for intrusive, short-notice, on-site inspections to detect and deter any possible cheating."
Davide Axe, Oops: The Pentagon Just Revealed Its Nuclear Doctrine, National Interest, June 20, 2019
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, nuclear weapons, War and tagged babcock & wilcox (B&W) Y-12, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Kleine Brogel airibase Belgium nuclear warheads, low-yield nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence, nuclear disarmament, nuclear missiles, nuclear war, nuclear warheads, nuclear weapons, Oak Ridge Y-12, old nuclear warheads, START, Y-12 nuclear complex, Y-12 Nuclear Security Complex on June 24, 2019 by Stoa.
Biodiversity and Respect for Human Rights
The instinctive response of many environmentalists is to to fence off protected areas as rapidly and extensively as possible. That thought certainly dominates discussions of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the main relevant international treaty. An eight-year-old addendum to the pact calls for 17% of the world's land surface and 10% of the ocean's water column (that is, the water under 10% of the ocean's surface) to be protected by 2020. Currently, those figures are 15% and 6%. Campaigners want the next set of targets, now under discussion, to aim for 30% by 2030—and even 50% by 2050. This last goal, biogeographers estimate, would preserve 85% of life's richness in the long run. As rallying cries go, "Nature needs half" has a ring to it, but not one that sounds so tuneful in the poor countries where much of the rhetorically required half will have to be found. Many people in such places already feel "Cornered by Protected Areas." (See also Biodiversity and Human Rights)
James Watson, chief scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society (wcs), another American charity, has an additional worry about focusing on the fence-it-off approach. If you care about the presence of species rather than the absence of humans, he warns, "'nature needs half' could be a catastrophe—if you get the wrong half." Many terrestrial protected areas are places that are mountainous or desert or both. Expanding them may not translate into saving more species. Moreover, in 2009 Lucas Joppa and Alexander Pfaff, both then at Duke University in North Carolina, showed that protected areas disproportionately occupy land that could well be fine even had it been left unprotected: agriculture-unfriendly slopes, areas remote from transport links or human settlements, and so on. Cordoning off more such places may have little practical effect.
Southern Appalachians, Virginia. image from wikipedia
In the United States it is the underprotected southern Appalachians, in the south-east of the country, that harbour the main biodiversity hotspots. The largest patches of ring-fenced wilderness, however, sit in the spectacular but barren mountain ranges of the west and north-west. In Brazil, the world's most speciose country, the principal hotspots are not, as might naively be assumed, in the vast expanse of the Amazon basin, but rather in the few remaining patches of Atlantic rainforest that hug the south-eastern coast.
Deforestation Atlantic Rainforest in Rio de Janeiro. Image from wikipedia
Nor is speciosity the only consideration. So is risk-spreading. A team from the University of Queensland, in Australia, led by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, has used a piece of financial mathematics called modern portfolio theory to select 50 coral reefs around the world as suitable, collectively, for preservation. Just as asset managers pick uncorrelated stocks and bonds in order to spread risk, Dr Hoegh-Guldberg and his colleagues picked reefs that have different exposures to rising water temperatures, wave damage from cyclones and so on. The resulting portfolio includes reefs in northern Sumatra and the southern Red Sea that have not previously registered on conservationists' radar screens…
Another common finding—counterintuitive to those who take the "fence-it-all-off" approach—is that a mixed economy of conservation and exploitation can work. For example, rates of deforestation in a partly protected region of Peru, the Alto Mayo, declined by 78% between 2011 and 2017, even as coffee production increased from 20 tonnes a year to 500 tonnes.
Environmental groups can also draw on a growing body of academic research into the effective stewardship of particular species. For too long, says William Sutherland, of Cambridge University, conservationists have relied on gut feelings. Fed up with his fellow practitioners' confident but unsubstantiated claims about their methods, and inspired by the idea of "evidence-based medicine", he launched, in 2004, an online repository of relevant peer-reviewed literature called Conservation Evidence. Today this repository contains more than 5,400 summaries of documented interventions. These are rated for effectiveness, certainty and harms. Want to conserve bird life threatened by farming, for example? The repository lists 27 interventions, ranging from leaving a mixture of seed for wild birds to peck (highly beneficial, based on 41 studies of various species in different countries) to marking bird nests during harvest (likely to be harmful or ineffective, based on a single study of lapwing in the Netherlands). The book version of their compendium, "What Works in Conservation", runs to 662 pages. It has been downloaded 35,000 times.
Excerpts from How to preserve nature on a tight budget, Economist, Feb. 9, 2919
This entry was posted in agriculture, Amazon, biodiversity, civilian casualties, Environment, Human Rights, indigenous peoples, property rights, public health and tagged biodiversity and human rights, biodiversity convention, biodiversity loss, biodiversity versus human rights, civilian casualties of coercive conservation, coercive conservation, community-based conservation program, conservation drones, convention for the conservation of biodiversity, militarization of conservation, protected areas, war and endangered species, war and national parks, WWF, WWF as nasty panda on April 10, 2019 by Stoa.
An Affordable and Risk Free Way to Kill: Drones
Armed drones have become ubiquitous in the Middle East, say Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi and Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute, a British think-tank, in a recent report. America has jealously guarded the export of such aircraft for fear that they might fall out of government hands, be turned on protesters or used against Israel. America has also been constrained by the Missile Technology Control Regime, an arms-control agreement signed by 35 countries, including Russia, that restricts the transfer of particularly capable missiles and drones (both rely on the same underlying technology).
China…has sold missile-toting drones to Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). All are American security partners…. Other countries, such as Israel, Turkey and Iran, have filled the gap with their own models. America wants to muscle its way back into the market. In April 2018 the Trump administration began loosening export rules to let countries buy armed drones directly from defence companies rather than through official channels. Drones with "strike-enabling technology", such as lasers to guide bombs to their targets, were reclassified as unarmed. American drones are costlier and require more paperwork than Chinese models, but are more capable. ..The flood of drones into the market is already making an impact—sometimes literally. Ms Tabrizi and Mr Bronk say some Middle Eastern customers see drones as an "affordable and risk-free" way to strike across borders…
Drone Bayraktar made by Turkey
Non-state actors are unwilling to be left out of the party. The jihadists of Islamic State often used drones in Iraq and Syria. Hizbullah used drones when it hit 23 fighters linked to al-Qaeda in Syria in 2014. The Houthi drone that bombed Al-Anad looked a lot like an Iranian model. Last year the Houthis sent a similar one more than 100km (60 miles) into Saudi Arabia before it was shot down. ..
Excerpts from Predator Pricing: Weapon Sales, Economist, Mar. 9, 2019
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Espionage, Markets, War and tagged armed drones, drone attacks, drone surveillance, drone war, drone warfare, drones, drones and civilian casualties, drones industry, drones Turkey, drones Yemen, Missile Technology Control Regime, unmanned aerial system (UAS), unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on April 3, 2019 by Stoa.
How to Save the Rhino? Torture and Kill Civilians
In national parks across Asia and Africa, the beloved nonprofit WWF with the cuddly panda logo funds, equips, and works directly with paramilitary forces that have been accused of beating, torturing, sexually assaulting, and murdering scores of people…WWF has provided high-tech enforcement equipment, cash, and weapons to forces implicated in atrocities against indigenous communities…Villagers have been whipped with belts, attacked with machetes, beaten unconscious with bamboo sticks, sexually assaulted, shot, and murdered by WWF-supported anti-poaching units, according to reports and document
WWF has provided paramilitary forces with salaries, training, and supplies — including knives, night vision binoculars, riot gear, and batons — and funded raids on villages…The charity has operated like a global spymaster, organizing, financing, and running dangerous and secretive networks of informants motivated by "fear" and "revenge," including within indigenous communities, to provide park officials with intelligence — all while publicly denying working with informants.
The charity funnels large sums of cash to its field offices in the developing world where staff work alongside national governments — including brutal dictatorships — to help maintain and police vast national parks that shelter endangered species. But many parks are magnets for poachers, and WWF expends much of its energy — and money — in a global battle against the organized criminal gangs that prey on the endangered species the charity was founded to protect. It's a crusade that WWF refers to in the hardened terms of war. Public statements speak of "boots on the ground," partnerships with "elite military forces," the creation of a "Jungle Brigade," and the deployment of "conservation drones." WWF is not alone in its embrace of militarization: Other conservation charities have enlisted in the war on poaching in growing numbers over the past decade, recruiting veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to teach forest rangers counterinsurgency techniques…
The enemy is real, and dangerous. Poaching is a billion-dollar industry that terrorizes animals and threatens some species' very existence. Poachers take advantage of regions ravaged by poverty and violence. And the work of forest rangers is indeed perilous: By one 2018 estimate, poachers killed nearly 50 rangers around the world in the previous year. But like any conflict, WWF's war on poaching has civilian casualties.
Indigenous people living near one park in southeast Cameroon described a litany of horrors incuding dead-of-night break-ins by men wielding machetes, rifle butt bludgeonings, burn torture involving chilis ground into paste, and homes and camps torched to the ground. Their tormentors in these accounts were not poachers, but the park officials who police them. Although governments employ the rangers, they often rely on WWF to bankroll their work. …Documents reveal WWF's own staffers on the ground are often deeply entwined with the rangers' work — coordinating their operations, jointly directing their raids and patrols alongside government officials, and turning a blind eye to their misdeeds.
Iindigenous groups — both small-fry hunters and innocent bystanders — say they suffer at the hands of the rangers. Nepal's park officials were given this free rein decades ago, shortly after WWF first arrived in Chitwan in 1967 to launch a rhinoceros conservation project in a lush lowland forest at the foot of the Himalayas. To clear the way, tens of thousands of indigenous people were evicted from their homes and moved to areas outside the park's boundaries..
The park's creation radically changed their way of life: Now they must scrape together money to buy tin for their roofs, pay hospital bills, and farm new crops. They also live in fear of the park's wild animals, which, while rising in number thanks to anti-poaching efforts, have destroyed crops and mauled people to death. Rhinoceros horns can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars on the black market. Professional poachers offer a tiny portion to locals who assist them, which can be hard for impoverished residents of villages to turn down.
Chitwan's forest rangers work alongside over 1,000 soldiers from the park's army battalion. Nepalese law gives them special power to investigate wildlife-related crimes, make arrests without a warrant, and retain immunity in cases where an officer has "no alternative" but to shoot the offender, even if the suspect dies….. Indigenous groups living near Chitwan have long detailed a host of abuses by these forces. Villagers have reported beatings, torture, sexual assaults, and killings by the park's guards. They've accused park officials of confiscating their firewood and vegetables, and forcing them into unpaid labor.
WWF's work with violent partners spans the globe. In Central Africa, internal documents show the charity's close involvement in military-style operations with both a repressive dictatorship and a notoriously fierce army. …The park's management plan says WWF will help organize raids, known as "coup de poings," on local villages suspected of harboring poachers. A confidential internal report found that such missions, frequently conducted in the dead of night with the help of police units, were often violent.
Excerpts from WWF Funds Guards Who Have Tortured And Killed People, BuzzFeed News
This entry was posted in biodiversity, civilian casualties, covert action, endangered species, Environment, Human Rights, indigenous peoples and tagged anti-poaching war, civilian casualties of anti-poaching war, civilian casualties of coercive conservation, coercive conservation, conservation drones, indigenous peoples movement, indigenous peoples rights, militarization of conservation, poaching, shoot-to-kill policiies, WWF, WWF as nasty panda on March 18, 2019 by Stoa.
When the State is the Gang
In South Sudan "There is a confirmed pattern of how combatants attack villages, plunder homes, take women as sexual slaves and then set homes alight often with people in them," commented Commission Chairperson Yasmin Sooka. "Rapes, gang rapes, sexual mutilation, abductions and sexual slavery, as well as killings, have become commonplace in South Sudan. There is no doubt that these crimes are persistent because impunity is so entrenched that every kind of norm is broken," she added.
UNICEF reports that 25 per cent of those targeted by sexual violence are children, including the rapes of girls as young as 7. Elderly and pregnant women have also been raped. The Commission also received reports of male victims of sexual violence. Sexual and gender-based violence against men and boys is even more underreported than that against women and girls as there is a greater level of stigma. There are even reports of raping and killing of the young and the elderly.
The Commission has also looked at the allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). From January 2018 to 2019, seven such cases involving 18 alleged UNMISS perpetrators were registered in the UN Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Database.
The oil producing areas of the country have become increasingly militarized by Government forces, including by the National Security Services, which have expanded their involvement in the oil sector. The state-owned Nilepet oil company's operations have been characterized by a total lack of transparency and independent oversight, allegedly diverting oil revenues into the coffers of elites in the government. Furthermore, oil revenues, and income from other natural resources such as illegal teak logging, have continued to fund the war, enabling its continuation and the resulting human rights violations.
Outraged by renewed fighting and continuing human rights violations in South Sudan, UN Human Rights Experts urge all parties to stop conflict, end impunity and respect provisions of the revitalized peace agreement, UN Human Rights Council, Press Release, Feb. 20, 2019
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Human Rights, War and tagged gang rape Sudan, rape, rape as a weapon of war, rape Darfur, rape epidemic, sextual mutilation sudan, sexual slavery Sudan, sexual violence Sudan, South Sudan civil war, South Sudan civil war 2013-2016, South Sudan oil on February 27, 2019 by Stoa.
Worse than the Dirty Bomb? Mobile Nuclear Military Reactors
In January 2019, the Defense Department issued a call for information in support of the aptly titled Project Dilithium. It seeks to develop a tiny, readily transportable, yet virtually indestructible nuclear power reactor for use at forward operating bases, the military facilities that provide logistical and troop support to the front-lines of conflict zones.
To be sure, the type of reactor it is seeking could be a great military asset: all the benefits of nuclear energy with none of the risks. The costly and dangerous process of trucking diesel fuel to bases, sometimes through hostile territory, may eventually be a thing of the past. Unfortunately, the need to store and ship irradiated nuclear fuel in a war zone will introduce different problems. And the odds that a meltdown-proof reactor could be successfully developed any time soon are vanishingly small.
The Defense Department…is seeking a nuclear reactor capable of producing 1 to 10 megawatts of electricity. …The reactor, at a minimum, should be less than 40 tons total weight; small enough to be transported by truck, ship, and aircraft; able to run for at least three years without refueling; and capable of semi-autonomous operation… The reactor should have an "inherently safe design" that ensures "a meltdown is physically impossible in various complete failure scenarios;" cause "no net increase in risk to public safety … by contamination with breach of primary core;" and have "minimized consequences to nearby personnel in case of adversary attack.
An Octrober 2018 report commissioned by the army's Deputy Chief of Staff admits, quite reasonably, that exposed mobile nuclear plants would "not be expected to survive a direct kinetic attack." If commanders need to expend significant resources to protect the reactors or their support systems from military strikes, such reactors could become burdens rather than assets. Can one really invent a reactor robust enough to suffer such a strike without causing unacceptable consequences? …If a severe accident or sabotage attack were to induce more extreme conditions than the reactor was designed to withstand, all bets are off. How long would passive airflow keep nuclear fuel safely cool if, say, an adversary threw an insulating blanket over a small reactor? Or if the reactor were buried under a pile of debris?
Moreover, it is hard to imagine that a direct explosive breach of the reactor core would not result in dispersal of some radioactive contamination. An operating nuclear reactor is essentially a can filled with concentrated radioactive material, including some highly volatile radionuclides, under conditions of high pressure and/or temperature. Even a reactor as small as 1 megawatt-electric would contain a large quantity of highly radioactive, long-lived isotopes such as cesium-137—a potential dirty bomb far bigger than the medical radiation sources that have caused much concern among security experts.
At best a release of radioactivity would be a costly disruption, and at worst it would cause immediate harm to personnel, render the base unusable for years, and alienate the host country. For any reactor and fuel design, extensive experimental and analytical work would be needed to understand how much radioactivity could actually escape after an attack and how far it would disperse. This is also true for spent fuel being stored or transported.
The 2018 report describes several existing reactor concepts that it thinks might meet its needs. One is the 2 megawatt-electric "Megapower" reactor being designed by Los Alamos National Laboratory. But a 2017 INL study of the design identified several major safety concerns, including vulnerabilities to seismic and flooding events. The study also found that the reactor lacked sufficient barriers to prevent fission product release in an accident. INL quickly developed two variants of the original Los Alamos design, but a subsequent review found that those shared many of the safety flaws of the original and introduced some new ones.
Building Mobile Nuclear Reactor LANL
The other designs are high-temperature gas-cooled reactors that use TRISO ("tristructural isotropic") fuel, which was originally developed decades ago for use in reactors such as the now-decommissioned Fort St. Vrain plant in Colorado. TRISO fuel consists of small particles of uranium coated with layers of different materials designed to retain most fission products at temperatures up to 1,600 degrees Celsius.
TRISO fuel enthusiasts have long claimed that reactors utilizing it do not need containments because each particle essentially has its own. This would seem to make TRISO an ideal fuel for small, mobile reactors, which can't be equipped with the large, leak-tight containment structures typical of commercial power reactors. The army report buys into the notion that these "encapsulated" nuclear fuels can "avoid the release of radioactive volatile elements" and prevent contamination of the surrounding area, either during normal operations or accidents.
TRISO fuel contained in pebble
TRISO fuel's actual performance has been inconsistent, however, and much is still not known. The Energy Department has been carrying out a program for more than a decade to try to improve TRISO fuel, but final results are not expected for years. In addition, if the fuel temperature rises above 1,600 degrees Celsius, fission product release can rapidly increase, making it vulnerable to incendiary weapons that burn hotter, such as thermite. The Defense Department may have already realized that TRISO fuel is not as miraculous as it first thought.
The RFI also specifies that the reactor should be capable of being transported within seven days after shutdown, presumably with the irradiated nuclear fuel still inside. While this requirement is understandable—if forces need to retreat in a hurry, they would not want to leave the reactor behind—it is unrealistic to expect this could be met while ensuring safety. Typically, spent nuclear fuel is stored for many months to years after discharge from a reactor before regulators allow it to be shipped, to allow for both thermal cooling and decay of short-lived, intensely radioactive fission products. Moving a reactor and its irradiated fuel so soon after shutdown could be a risky business.
Finally, the proliferation risks of these reactors and their fuel is a concern. The original RFI stipulated that the reactor fuel had to be high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), which is uranium enriched to levels above the 5 percent uranium-235 concentration of conventional power reactors, but still below the 20 percent that marks the lower limit for highly enriched uranium (HEU), which is usable in nuclear weapons….If the Defense Department goes forward with Project Dilithium, other nations, including US adversaries, may be prompted to start producing HALEU and building their own military power reactors.
Excerptsf rom Edwin Lyman The Pentagon wants to boldly go where no nuclear reactor has gone before. It won't work, Feb. 22, 2019
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Energy, Environment, hazardous waste, Markets, nuclear weapons and tagged dirty bomb, highly enriched uranium (HEU), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Megapower reactor LANL, mobile nuclear reactors, nuclear lobby, nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear reactors, nuclear weapons, Project Dilithium, small modular nuclear reactor (SMR), small modular reactor (SMR), TRISO fuel on February 25, 2019 by Stoa.
US Military Leaves but CIA Remains: Syria
Is there a way for the United States and its allies to remain in northeastern Syria, even after President Trump pledged in December 2018 to withdraw U.S. military forces there? Officials are struggling to devise such a "workaround" strategy…One possibility, according to U.S. and foreign officials, would be to have paramilitary officers from the Central Intelligence Agency take over the training and advising of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Since 2015, those duties have been carried out by U.S. Special Operations forces. This approach, still in the discussion stage, would allow Trump to claim he is delivering on his pledge to withdraw troops from Syria, without creating a vacuum in the northeast that would be exploited by Turkey, Iran, Russia and the Syrian regime…
This new option, in the language of government lawyers, would mix Title 10 overt military operations and Title 50 covert action. Reduced military activity could continue under Title 10 authority, to provide air cover and logistical support for U.S. and allied troops on the ground, but the SDF's advisers might be CIA officers. The CIA operatives, like existing Special Forces personnel, wouldn't be involved directly in ground combat…
A paramilitary advisory force, operating under Title 50, would have some significant disadvantages…. Current U.S. military forces in Syria can deter adversaries because they carry the U.S. flag, literally and figuratively. A paramilitary force wouldn't have that same deterrent capability, or the ability to deconflict operations with other forces in the area, such as Russia and Turkey. ..
Given the U.S. and European policy muddle, SDF commanders must weigh whether to make their own accommodation with Russia and the Syrian regime. The United Arab Emirates is said to favor such an approach, and some longtime SDF supporters say a deal with the regime would be safer for the Kurds than depending on a fickle United States and a gun-shy Europe.
Excerpts from David Ignatius, How the U.S. might stay in Syria, and leave at the same time, Washington Post, Feb. 16, 2019
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Environment, War and tagged CIA and Kurdistan, covert action Syria, covert operations, Kurds, Syria and Turkey, Syria CIA, Syria civil war, Syria civilian casualties, Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), Syria intervention, Syria uprising on February 19, 2019 by Stoa.
The Nine and their Nuclear Weapons
Nine nationst control the roughly 14,200 nuclear weapons in the world… But What makes a good nuclear arsenal? First, a good nuclear doctrine. Will a country strike first, or only in response? Second, safety. Are the nukes secure? Does the country participate in nonproliferation treaties?
Third, do the nukes work as intended? Is the arsenal sufficient? Can the nukes survive an initial attack?…Business Insider has weighed these questions with the help of Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, to rank the world's nuclear arsenals.
9. North Korea: North Korea fails by virtually every metric used to measure nuclear arsenals… Because Pyongyang can never hope to defeat any of its enemies in conventional fighting, it turned to nukes as a guarantor of its security. Weapons count: estimated 60. North Korea has a number of short- to intercontinental-range ballistic-missile systems thought to operate off the backs of mobile missile launchers. One analyst has warned that North Korea's mobile launchers may simply distract from the real threat of hidden nuclear silos, but no evidence of such silos has ever appeared in US intelligence reports made public. It's completely unknown if North Korea keeps its nuclear weapons mated or with the warhead affixed to the missile.
8. Pakistan: Pakistan built nuclear weapons in response to its bitter regional rival, India, testing and proceeding with a relatively simple nuclear mission: deter or defeat India….Pakistan has links to Islamic extremists with connections to global terror networks. Experts have long feared not enough has been done to secure Islamabad's nukes against these threats. Additionally, "Pakistan has lowered the threshold for nuclear weapons use," by building smaller, tactical nuclear weapons. Weapons count: 150. Pakistan has ballistic missiles with ranges just long enough to hit anywhere in the country of India….The US has specifically given Pakistan permission to modify its F-16 fighters to drop nuclear weapons…Pakistan is thought to keep its nuclear warheads separate from its missiles and delivery systems.
7. India: "India is still a nuclear posture that's still in vivid development," Just as Pakistan fears India's greater strength and numbers, India has come to fear China's growing and modernizing conventional forces. But unlike Pakistan, India has sworn off nuclear first strikes and not looked into tactical nuclear weapons. ..But India's submarine fleet remains a dream at the moment, lowering its overall score. Weapons count: 140 (stored) India recently launched its first nuclear-powered submarine..As it stands, the missiles and submarine India has picked out for its underwater nuclear deterrent can't range China's vital points or most of Pakistan.
6. Russia: "Russia seems to sort of be driven by a frantic exploitation of different options," Weapons count: 6,850 (1,600 deployed; 2,750 stored; 2,500 retired). Russia has the full nuclear triad with constantly modernized bombers, land-based missiles, and submarines. The triad is a true 24/7/365 force with submarines on deterrence patrols at all times. Additionally, Russia has a high number of tactical nuclear weapons with shorter-range and smaller-explosive yield…Russia's Poseidon underwater 100 to 200 megaton nuclear torpedo is the biggest nuclear explosive device ever built…The weapon would essentially set off tidal waves so large and an explosion so radioactive and punishing that continents, not countries, would pay the price for decades. The US has not found it useful to respond to these doomsday-type devices. Russia stores its nuclear warheads mated to missiles and ready to fire. Additionally, it has surrounded Moscow with 68 nuclear-tipped missile interceptors meant to protect the city from a US strike.
5. Israel: "Israel is interesting because it's a semi-dormant nuclear program, but it's not dormant," …Israel's conventional military, with its top-of-the-line air force and close coordination with the US, easily overpowers its regional foes in traditional fighting. Instead of reaching for nuclear weapons to threaten a more powerful foe, Israel has a "very relaxed nuclear posture, truly what you could call a last resort posture," Weapons count: estimated 80..Truly, nobody knows what weapons Israel has or doesn't have, and that's the way they like it.
4. UK: Weapons count: 215 (120 deployed; 95 stored) During the Cold War, the UK labored to create its own nuclear weapons and delivery systems, but since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the UK has withdrawn from that posture and essentially become a client of the US. The UK operates four nuclear submarines that fire can fire 16 Trident missiles made by the US. That's it. The UK won't get an "arsenal" page for this reason. The warheads on these patrols are mated to missiles.
3. France: France has a long history with nuclear weapons, like the UK, but has maintained more independence and control over its stockpile and doctrine. Weapons count: 300 (290 deployed; 10 stored)..France has four nuclear-powered submarines, one of which stays on a constant deterrence patrol ready to fire mated nuclear missiles. While it's not a nuclear weapon outright, outside of the US, only France operates a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle.
2. US: Weapons count: 6,450 (1,750 deployed; 2,050 stored; 2,650 retiredd)Today the US's nuclear arsenal has narrowed down to a triad in constant stages of modernization. The US operates two nuclear-capable bombers, the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and the B-52 Stratofortress, originally built in the 1950s and slated to fly for 100 years. The US operates a fleet of nuclear submarines, which it keeps on constant deterrence patrols. The US also has nearly 400 intercontinental-range missiles in silos around the country, mostly aimed at Russia's nuclear weapons for an imagined "mutual destruction" scenario. Recently, the US has come under intense criticism for President Donald Trump's proposal to build more smaller or tactical nuclear weapons. Experts say these weapons make nuclear war more likely. The US has tactical nuclear weapons stored around Europe and Turkey, which, like the bigger strategic weapons, are stored mated.
1. China: China has just 280 nuclear warheads, and none of them are mated to delivery systems. China flies bombers and sails submarines that it calls nuclear-capable, but none of them have ever actually flown with nuclear weapons. China's nuclear doctrine forbids first strikes and centers around the idea that China would survive a nuclear strike, dig its bombs out of deep underground storage, and send a salvo of missiles back in days, months, or years. This essentially nails the idea of "credible minimum deterrence." Everyone knows China has nuclear weapons, that they work, and nobody doubts China would use them if it first received a nuclear attack. China has nuclear-capable submarines and bombers, but they do not ever travel with nuclear weapons on board. China relies on a growing and modernizing conventional military to assert its will on other countries and virtually never mentions its nuclear arsenal.
Excerpts from Alex Lockie, We ranked the world's nuclear arsenals — here's why China's came out on top, Business Insider, Jan. 25, 2019
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Energy, Environment, hazardous waste, Nuclear Energy, nuclear weapons and tagged loose nukes, Missile Technology Control Regime, missile-defense systems, nonproliferation, North Korea nuclear weapons, North Korean missiles, nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear non-proliferation treaty, nuclear nonproliferation treaty, nuclear postures of states, nuclear triad, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons China, nuclear weapons India, nuclear weapons Israel, nuclear weapons justice and the law, nuclear weapons Pakistan, nuclear weapons Russia, tactical nuclear weapons, United States nuclear posture on February 11, 2019 by Stoa.
HyperSonic Gliders: Arms Race at the Speed of Sound
Hypersonics are like missiles that travel at over five times the speed of sound, but are able to manoeuvre in mid-flight, making them much harder to track and intercept than traditional projectiles. France is the fourth of the five permanent UN Security Council members to join the so-called "stealth by speed" contest, after China, Russia and the United States. "We have decided to issue a contract for a hypersonic glider"–V-MaX (Experimental Manoeuvering Vehicle)–that can travel at over 6,000 kilometres per hour, Defence Minister Florence Parly said last week, promising a test flight by the end of 2021.
In March 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin stunned Western military analysts – and many in Russia – by unveiling plans for a new arsenal of hypersonic weapons which he said would render missile defence systems obsolete….A few months later US President Donald Trump threatened to walk away from a key arms control treaty with Moscow.
Hypersonic gliders would be carried to the end of the earth's atmosphere by a launch vehicle and would then "glide" back to a target on the ground. "The goal is high-speed manoeuvrability. That's how it differs from a ballistic trajectory," the French government's defence procurement and technology agency (DGA) said. "Once the initial speed is reached, we can play with speed and altitude to move up and down, to the left and to the right, creating a trajectory that is more difficult to intercept," it said…
In December 2018, the Kremlin touted the capabilities of its new hypersonic glider, aptly named "Avanguard". The Kremlin said that in tests, the intercontinental projectile reached 27 times the speed of sound – 33,000 kilometres per hour, or Mach 27. "At this speed, not a single intercepter missile can shoot it down," Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov boasted. China has also reportedly carried out several successful tests since 2014 of a glider that can reach speeds of between Mach 5 and Mach 10.
Excerpts from Race for 'hypersonic' weapons heats up as France joins fray, Agence France Presse, Jan. 29, 2019
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, War and tagged Avangard Russia hypersonic weapon, ballistic missile defense, Ballistic Missile Defense system, ballistic missiles v. hypersonic missiles, export denial of hypersonic weapons, high-speed manoeuvrability, high-speed strike weapons, hypersonic gliders, hypersonic weapons, speed of sound on January 31, 2019 by Stoa.
Killer Robots: Your Kids V. Theirs
The harop, a kamikaze drone, bolts from its launcher like a horse out of the gates. But it is not built for speed, nor for a jockey. Instead it just loiters, unsupervised, too high for those on the battlefield below to hear the thin old-fashioned whine of its propeller, waiting for its chance.
Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) has been selling the Harop for more than a decade. A number of countries have bought the drone, including India and Germany. …In 2017, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (sipri), a think-tank, the Harop was one of 49 deployed systems which could detect possible targets and attack them without human intervention. It is thus very much the sort of thing which disturbs the coalition of 89 non-governmental organisations (ngos) in 50 countries that has come together under the banner of the "Campaign to Stop Killer Robots".
The Phalanx guns used by the navies of America and its allies. Once switched on, the Phalanx will fire on anything it sees heading towards the ship it is mounted on. And in the case of a ship at sea that knows itself to be under attack by missiles too fast for any human trigger finger, that seems fair enough. Similar arguments can be made for the robot sentry guns in the demilitarised zone (dmz) between North and South Korea.
Autonomous vehicles do not have to become autonomous weapons, even when capable of deadly force. The Reaper drones with which America assassinates enemies are under firm human control when it comes to acts of violence, even though they can fly autonomously…. One of the advantages that MDBA, a European missile-maker, boasts for its air-to-ground Brimstones is that they can "self-sort" based on firing order. If different planes launch volleys of Brimstones into the same "kill box", where they are free to do their worst, the missiles will keep tabs on each other to reduce the chance that two strike the same target.
Cost is also a factor in armies where trained personnel are pricey. "The thing about robots is that they don't have pensions,"…If keeping a human in the loop was merely a matter of spending more, it might be deemed worthwhile regardless. But human control creates vulnerabilities. It means that you must pump a lot of encrypted data back and forth. What if the necessary data links are attacked physically—for example with anti-satellite weapons—jammed electronically or subverted through cyberwarfare? Future wars are likely to be fought in what America's armed forces call "contested electromagnetic environments". The Royal Air Force is confident that encrypted data links would survive such environments. But air forces have an interest in making sure there are still jobs for pilots; this may leave them prey to unconscious bias.
The vulnerability of communication links to interference is an argument for greater autonomy. But autonomous systems can be interfered with, too. The sensors for weapons like Brimstone need to be a lot more fly than those required by, say, self-driving cars, not just because battlefields are chaotic, but also because the other side will be trying to disorient them. Just as some activists use asymmetric make-up to try to confuse face-recognition systems, so military targets will try to distort the signatures which autonomous weapons seek to discern. Paul Scharre, author of "Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War", warns that the neural networks used in machine learning are intrinsically vulnerable to spoofing.
The 2017 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons has put together a group of governmental experts to study the finer points of autonomy. As well as trying to develop a common understanding of what weapons should be considered fully autonomous, it is considering both a blanket ban and other options for dealing with the humanitarian and security challenges that they create. Most states involved in the convention's discussions agree on the importance of human control. But they differ on what this actually means. In a paper for Article 36, an advocacy group named after a provision of the Geneva conventions that calls for legal reviews on new methods of warfare, Heather Roff and Richard Moyes argue that "a human simply pressing a 'fire' button in response to indications from a computer, without cognitive clarity or awareness" is not really in control. "Meaningful control", they say, requires an understanding of the context in which the weapon is being used as well as capacity for timely and reasoned intervention. It also requires accountability…
The two dozen states that want a legally binding ban on fully autonomous weapons are mostly military minnows like Djibouti and Peru, but some members, such as Austria, have diplomatic sway. None of them has the sort of arms industry that stands to profit from autonomous weapons. They ground their argument in part on International Humanitarian Law (IHL), a corpus built around the rules of war laid down in the Hague and Geneva conventions. This demands that armies distinguish between combatants and civilians, refrain from attacks where the risk to civilians outweighs the military advantage, use no more force than is proportional to the objective and avoid unnecessary suffering…Beyond the core group advocating a ban there is a range of opinions. China has indicated that it supports a ban in principle; but on use, not development. France and Germany oppose a ban, for now; but they want states to agree a code of conduct with wriggle room "for national interpretations". India is reserving its position. It is eager to avoid a repeat of nuclear history, in which technological have-nots were locked out of game-changing weaponry by a discriminatory treaty.
At the far end of the spectrum a group of states, including America, Britain and Russia, explicitly opposes the ban. These countries insist that existing international law provides a sufficient check on all future systems….States are likely to sacrifice human control for self-preservation, says General Barrons. "You can send your children to fight this war and do terrible things, or you can send machines and hang on to your children." Other people's children are other people's concern.
Excerpts from Briefing Autonomous Weapons: Trying to Restrain the Robots, Economist, Jan. 19, 2019, at 22
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Human Rights, War and tagged automated army, automated military, autonomous underwater vehicles, autonomous weapons, brimstone missile, conventional weapons, drone war, drones, drones gremlins, drones helicopters, drones industry, drones Pentagon, Geneva conventions, harop drone, international humanitarian law, kamikaze drones, killer robots, laws of war, MQ-9 Reaper drone, un convention on conventional weapons, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on January 23, 2019 by Stoa.
How to Hide Nuclear Bombs in the Ocean: Nuclear Submarines
The INS Arihant's India's nuclear submarine inaugural voyage in November 2018 was a triumphal step forward in India's long, often tortuous quest to deploy atomic weapons at sea… Hiding missiles in the ocean solves these problems, giving India more confidence that its forces could survive a nuclear attack from China or Pakistan, and hit back.But managing such weapons is not easy. One difficulty is ensuring that a submarine can receive orders without giving away its location. India has been building low-frequency radio stations, which use large antennas to propel signals underwater, for this purpose. Yet these are also vulnerable to attack, which is why some nuclear-armed states use airborne transmitters as well.
A second hitch is that the k-15 missiles aboard the Arihant can only fly a puny 750km, which means that the submarine would have to park itself dangerously close to China's coastline to have a hope of striking big cities. Longer-range missiles, which could be fired from the safety of Indian waters, are in the works. But bigger missiles, and more of them, necessitate a bigger hull. That, in turn, requires that the nuclear-powered subs be fitted with bigger reactors—a fiendish technical challenge.
A third problem is keeping the Arihant safe. Nuclear submarines can only do their job if they can slip silently out of port and into the oceans. They are typically chaperoned by leaner attack submarines. But admirals complain that the navy, whose share of the defence budget has dwindled to 15%, has just 13 of these. The delivery of new French attack subs has been delayed.
Meanwhile India's nuclear arsenal is swelling. A recent report by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a research organisation, estimates that it has 130-140 nuclear warheads, with enough fissile material for 60-70 more. The stockpile, though smaller than Pakistan's and half the size of China's, has roughly doubled since 2010. Many of the new warheads will go to sea. A second nuclear submarine, the Arighant, is nearing completion, and a third is in the works.
India's Nuclear Submarines, Economist, Nov. 17, 2018, at 44
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Environment, War and tagged INS Arihant India, INS Arihant nuclear submarine India, nuclear attack, nuclear submarines, nuclear submarines India on January 9, 2019 by Stoa.
How to Stop the Chemical Wars of the Future
Stark illustrations of the dangers from chemical weapons can be seen in attacks using toxic industrial chemicals and sarin against civilians and combatants in Syria and toxic industrial chemicals in Iraq, as well as more targeted assassination operations in Malaysia and the United Kingdom, employing VX and novichok nerve agents, respectively. . With the parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) convening a Review Conference to address such issues beginning 21 November 2018, we highlight important scientific aspects .
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is a multilateral treaty in effect since 1997 that proscribes the development, production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of chemical weapons "under any circumstances" and requires their destruction within a specified time period. The CWC allows the use of toxic chemicals for a range of industrial, agricultural, research, medical, pharmaceutical, or other peaceful purposes, including law enforcement, as long as the "types and quantities" of chemicals employed are "consistent with such purposes." …The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is the implementing body of the CWC, comprises the 193 State Parties and a Technical Secretariat that provides technical assistance to States, routinely inspects relevant State and commercial industrial facilities, and monitors activities to ensure compliance. It was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for overseeing and facilitating the verified destruction of most of the declared chemical weapons stocks produced in the last century—to date totaling more than 96% (69,750 metric tons) of the declared stockpiles of chemical agents.
Although the CWC includes three schedules of toxic chemicals for the application of verification measures, the scope of the CWC is not constrained to these schedules but by its General Purpose Criterion (GPC), which prohibits misuse of toxic chemicals based on intent rather than on this limited list of chemicals. [This GPC makes it possible to widen the authority of the OPCW. More, specifically issues to consider include]:
1) Riot control agents (RCAs). The CWC defines RCAs—such as tear gas and pepper spray—as "any chemical not listed" in one of its three schedules that can produce "rapidly in humans sensory irritation or disabling physical effects which disappear within a short time following termination of exposure."…However, a recurring concern documented by the medical community and human rights monitors has been the widespread misuse of RCAs by police and security forces in excessive quantities, including in hospitals, prisons, homes, and automobiles, where targeted individuals cannot disperse. In such situations, serious injury or death can result from toxic properties of chemicals or from asphyxiation… [It is important to clarify] the nature and scope of "law enforcement" activities and develop guidance as to "types and quantities" of RCAs that can legitimately be used in such circumstances
2) Delivery systems… capable of delivering far greater amounts of RCAs (and potentially other toxic chemicals) over wider areas or more extended distances than current standard law enforcement delivery mechanisms, such as handheld sprays, grenades, and single launched projectiles. Such new systems include large-capacity spraying devices, automatic grenade launchers, multibarrel projectile launchers, large-caliber RCA projectiles, and unmanned ground or aerial vehicles capable of carrying spraying devices or projectile launchers. ..
3) Incapacitating chemical agent (ICA) weapons. Although the CWC permits use of appropriate types and quantities of RCAs for law enforcement, certain countries have conducted research into weapons employing other distinct toxic chemicals, so-called ICAs. Not separately defined under the CWC, ICAs can be considered as a range of toxic chemicals—only one of which [3-quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ) and two of its immediate precursors] is currently scheduled—including anesthetics and other pharmaceutical chemicals that are purportedly intended to act on the body's core biochemical and physiological systems, notably the central nervous system (CNS), to cause prolonged but nonpermanent disability. Such CNS-acting chemicals can produce unconsciousness, sedation, hallucination, incoherence, disorientation, or paralysis…An aerosolized mixture of two anesthetics—carfentanil and remifentanil—employed by Russian security forces to end the Moscow theatre siege of October 2002 caused the deaths of 125 of the 900 hostages…
Other chemical production facilities (OCPFs) are chemical plants that do not currently produce, but are capable of manufacturing, chemical warfare agents or precursors. At present, a small fraction of declared OCPFs are selected for verification by the OPCW; the Review Conference should consider authorizing a substantial increase in OCPF inspections per year. …Biological and biologically mediated processes for production of discrete organic chemicals Some products and processes used by the biomanufacturing industry are as relevant to the CWC as those used by other OCPF facilities The OPCW should build on the considerable progress made toward developing a network of designated laboratories for the analysis of biomedical and biological samples. Advances in other fields could also facilitate more effective evidence collection, for example, exploring the potential of unmanned aerial vehicles to support reconnaissance, detection, and chain of custody.
Excerpts from Michael Crowley at al., Preventing Chemical Weapons as Sciences Converge, Science, Nov. 16, 2018
This entry was posted in agriculture, civilian casualties, Environment, Human Rights, public health, War and tagged chemical lasers, chemical warfare, Chemical Weapons Convention, chemical weapons Lybia, chemical weapons Sudan 2016, chemical weapons Syria, drones riot control, Incapacitating chemical agent (ICA) weapon, Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), pharmaceutical chemicals as weapons, riot control, riot control agents (RCAs) on January 2, 2019 by Stoa.
Killing Machines: Tiny Spy Satellites
As long as we've been launching spy satellites into space, we've been trying to find ways to hide them from the enemy. Now, thanks to the small satellite revolution—and a growing amount of space junk—America has a new way to mask its spying in orbit…
The National Reconnaissance Office, the operator of many of the U.S.'s spy sats, refused to answer any questions about ways to hide small satellites in orbit. In 2014, Russia launched a trio of communications satellites. Like any other launch, spent stages and space debris were left behind in space. Air Force Space Command dutifully catalogued them, including a nondescript piece of debris called Object 2014-28E. Nondescript until it started to move around in space, that is. One thing about orbits; they are supposed to be predictable. When something moves in an unexpected way, the debris is not debris but a spacecraft. And this object was flying close to the spent stages, maneuvering to get closer. This fueled speculation that the object could be a prototype kamikaze-style sat killer. Other less frantic speculation postulated that it could be used to examine other sats in orbit, either Russia's or those operated by geopolitical foes. Either way, the lesson was learned…
Modern tracking radar is supposed to map space junk better than ever before. But small spy satellites that will hide in the cloud of space debris may go undetected, even by the most sophisticated new radar or Earth-based electronic signals snooping.
Excerpts from Joe Pappalardo, Space Junk Could Provide a Perfect Hiding Spot for Tiny Spy Satellites, Popular Mechanics, Nov. 30, 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Espionage, War and tagged anti-satellite weapon, anti-satellite weapons, China satellite technology, cube-satellites, cubesat, fractionated satellites, kamikaze-style satellite killer, microsatellites, military satellites, nano-satellites, nanosta, Object 2014-28E, pseudo-satellites, satellite, satellite technology, satellite tracking, satellites surveillance, satellites war, space debris, space junk, spy satellites on December 5, 2018 by Stoa.
Killing US Enemies: Covert Operations
The U.S. has some of the best special operations units in the world, but they can't do everything on their own. The American military relies on allied special operators from places like Britain, Iraq, and Israel to collect intelligence and kill enemy insurgents and soldiers. Here are 6 of those special operations commands.
1. SAS and SBS (UK)
These could obviously be two separate entries, but we're combining them here because they're both British units that often operate side-by-side with U.S. forces, just with different missions and pedigrees. The Special Air Service (SAS) pulls from the British Army and focuses on counter-terrorism and reconnaissance. The Special Boat Service (SBS) does maritime counter-terrorism and amphibious warfare (but will absolutely stack bodies on land, too).
2. Sayeret Matkal (Israel)
Israel's Sayeret Matkal has generated rumors and conjecture for decades, and it's easy to see why when you look at their few public successes…. The commandos in the unit are skilled in deception, direct action, and intelligence gathering…One of their most public recent successes came when they led a daring mission to install listening devices in ISIS buildings, learning of a plan to hide bombs in the battery wells of laptops.
3. French Special Operations Command
French special operations units are even more close-mouthed than the overall specops community…
4. Kommando Spezialkräfte (Germany)
The commandos have reportedly deployed to Syria in recent years to fight ISIS.
5. Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service
6. Afghan National Army Commando Corps
It's even capable of the rapid nighttime raids that U.S. forces became famous for when they were in the lead in that country…Afghanistan also has the Ktah Khas, a counter-terrorism unit known for daring raids like their 2016 rescue of 59 prisoners in a Taliban hideout.
Logan Nye, We Are The Mighty: 6 foreign special operations units the US relies on to collect intelligence and kill enemy insurgents, Business Insider, Nov. 30, 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, War and tagged covert action, covert operations, covert war, Ktah Khas covert action Afghanistan, Sayeret Matkal (Israel), Special Forces covert operations, special operations, U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), UK Special Air Service (SAS), US special forces, US Special Operations Command on December 4, 2018 by Stoa.
Sniffing the Earth for Nuclear Exposions
Australia's infrasound station "IS03" in Davis Base, Antarctica, is one of nearly 300 certified stations of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) Organization monitoring system, feeling and sniffing the Earth for any signs of a nuclear explosion. The global system will comprise 337 facilities when complete. "The monitoring stations in Australia cover a large expanse of the Southern hemisphere. They are strategically positioned to contribute significantly to the International Monitoring System (IMS) detection and location capability. All six nuclear tests by North Korea were clearly detected by Australia's IMS seismic stations," Zerbo said.
"Australia ranks third among countries hosting the largest number of monitoring facilities. It covers all four technologies used for nuclear test detection. Some of the stations are located in particularly remote and inaccessible areas of the Earth, such as Antarctica. This has been a 20 year-long joint effort by CTBTO and Australia and is truly an extraordinary achievement," Zerbo said.
The CTBTO's global monitoring network captures four types of data: vibrations through the ground and in water – seismic and hydroacoustic; sound beyond the range of the human ear and detection of radioactive particles – infrasound and radionuclide.
The network guards against violations of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) banning nuclear explosions by everyone, everywhere: in the atmosphere, underwater and underground. The global network detects nuclear tests with high reliability. For example, on 3 September 2017, over 100 stations in the network detected and alerted Member States to North Korea's last announced nuclear test.
Excerpts from Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), Australia Completes Its Monitoring Stations in the Global Network to Detect Nuclear Tests, Nov 18, 2018, 15:45 ET
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, nuclear weapons, War and tagged Australia's infrasound station "IS03", Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), infrasound nuclear tests detection stations, nuclear test North Korea, testing nuclear devices on November 27, 2018 by Stoa.
Overly Militarized Military: United States
Gray zone security challenges…that fall between the traditional war and peace duality, are characterized by ambiguity about the nature of the conflict, opacity of the parties involved, or uncertainty about the relevant policy and legal frameworks….
The U.S. already possesses the right mix of tools to prevail in the gray zone, but it must think, organize and act differently. Gray zone challenges are not new. Monikers such as irregular warfare, low-intensity conflict, asymmetric warfare, military operations other than war and small wars were employed to describe this phenomenon in the past. …
America spends roughly $600 billion every year on defense, and it is the dominant global power by every objective measure. Yet state and non-state actors (e.g., Russia and Daesh) are increasingly undeterred from acting in ways inimical to the global common good.
State actors like Russia and China reasonably believe we will not use nuclear or conventional military force to thwart their ambitions if they craft their aggressive actions to avoid clear-cut military triggers. Despite their inherent ambiguity, the United States should not be frustrated by gray zone challenges. Rather, we should aim to achieve favorable outcomes by taking some practical steps to improve our ability to address them.
Our responses to gray zone challenges display several clear deficiencies. As separate U.S. government agencies strive to achieve their individual organizational goals, they seldom act in integrated ways to support wider government objectives….We also need to grow our non-military capabilities. Our gray zone actions are often overly militarized because the Department of Defense has the most capability and resources, and thus is often the default U.S. government answer…. Our counter-Daesh campaign is a perfect example. Thousands of airstrikes helped to check their rapid expansion, but the decisive effort against them will require discrediting their narrative and connecting the people to legitimate governing structures — areas where DoD should not have primacy.
Root Causes: Prudent strategies recognize root causes and address them. Daesh, for example, is merely symptomatic of the much larger problems of massive populations of disaffected Sunnis estranged from legitimate governance and a breakdown in the social order across much of Africa and the Middle East, which will worsen in coming years by economic and demographic trends. Daesh is also a prime example of gray zone challenges, since the legal and policy framework of how to attack a proto-state is highly ambiguous. Coalition aircraft started bombing Daesh in August of 2014, although the authorization for use of military force is still under debate a year later, highlighting the confusion on how to proceed.
[Develop and Nurture Surrogates to Fight China]
For example, China is both antagonistically asserting its questionable claims to specific islands and atolls in the South China Sea while simultaneously expanding its import of raw materials from Africa. Instead of confronting China in the South China Sea directly, surrogates could, theoretically, be used to hold China's African interests at risk in order to compel a more favorable outcome of South China Sea disputes. Thus, the point of action (e.g., Africa) might be far removed from the point of effect (e.g., Asia), but the intent would be to alter the decision-making calculus regardless of geography. To be credible, such an approach requires prep work every bit as important as the infrastructure behind our nuclear and conventional capabilities. Capable and trustworthy surrogates are the result of years of purposeful relationship nurturing,and the vast majority of the work should take place pre-crisis….
Changing our vocabulary could help yield better decisions in the gray zone. Adopting a business vocabulary and a "SWOT" model (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat) would open other opportunities not available in military decision-making models. Similar to the way businesses decide how to allocate capital, we would necessarily distinguish between opportunities and threats and have at least an estimate of our expected return on investment. Talking and thinking differently about national security in the gray zone would help us measure the oft-ignored opportunity costs and come up with some metric, however imperfect initially, to measure our expected return on investment for defense dollars.
Cost should be a significant up front consideration. For example, we famously refused to provide a cost estimate for Operation Iraqi Freedom, other than to know that $200 billion was ar too high. Assuming we established $200 billion as the top end to "invest" in
Iraq, it would at least force us to review our actions and evaluate our return on investment as we blew through initial estimates on our way to spending in excess of $2 trillion.
Excerpts from the Gray Zone, Special Warfare, Oct-Dec. 2015, Volume 28, Issue 4
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, cyberwar, Human Rights, War and tagged asymmetric warfare, covert action, covert operations, gray war zone, irregular warfare, low-intensity conflict, proxy wars, small wars, special forces, United States special operations, us military strategy, US special forces, use of surrogate states in war on November 16, 2018 by Stoa.
A Sinkhole Sucking in Failed States: jihad in Africa
The number of violent incidents involving jihadist groups in Africa has increased by more than 300% between 2010 and 2017… Many Western officers are despondent. Without more troops "there is no question we will lose", says a senior French officer.
In the potpourri of jihadist groups, many pledge their loyalties to al-Qaeda or IS. They include al-Shabab in Somalia, Boko Haram and its factions in Nigeria, and Jama'a Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin in Mali. In each country, conflict may be fuelled largely by local grievances. But the insurgents share some ideological traits. Many have been strengthened by the breakdown of Libya after the downfall of Muammar Qaddafi's regime in 2011. Weapons spilled out of Libya's armouries, and smuggling networks for everything from people to drugs developed across the Sahara. There are signs that the jihadists are learning from one another and sucking money and support from militant groups in the Middle East…
The most important of the battles is Nigeria's campaign against Boko Haram. ..A retired general who once held a senior post at AFRICOM, America's military command for Africa, puts it thus: "If Nigeria goes down it would make a giant sinkhole that would suck in six or seven other countries." Nigeria's difficulties, moreover, offer sobering lessons to many other African countries, and their Western allies.
Maiduguri (Nigeria) was the birthplace of Boko Haram, whose factions make up the world's deadliest terrorist group. It is so extreme that it sickens even IS and al-Qaeda. The group was founded by the followers of a charismatic Islamic preacher, Mohammed Yusuf, who had started a religious school and mosque in Maiduguri in 2002… Among his demands was a ban on secular schooling (the group's name, Boko Haram, means "Western education is a sin" in Hausa).
The Nigerian police arrested and then killed Yusuf in front of a crowd outside the police headquarters in Maiduguri (the government insisted he was shot while trying to escape). Yusuf's followers went into hiding before emerging under the command of Abubakar Shekau. In 2011 they blew up the headquarters of the Nigerian police and a UN building in Abuja, Nigeria's capital. By the end of 2014 they had overrun large parts of three states in north-eastern Nigeria, gained international notoriety after kidnapping almost 300 schoolgirls from Chibok and were fighting their way into Maiduguri. Nigeria's army, hollowed out by corruption, was in disarray. Units were filled by ghost soldiers whose pay was being pocketed by their commanders. One Western officer recalls how a company that should have had 100-150 soldiers consisted of just 20 men.
Boko Haram did not at first try to govern…. It preferred chaos. It bombed mosques and markets, massacred villagers and abducted women and children. Some girls were enslaved and sold. Others were pressed into being human bombs. A study by the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point, a military academy, found that more than half of 434 such human bombs the group used between April 2011 and June 2017 were female.UNICEF, the UN children's agency, says that last year Boko Haram strapped bombs to at least 135 children.
Mr Shekau's brutality proved too much even for IS, to which he had sworn allegiance in 2015, changing Boko Haram's name to Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). In 2016 IS named Abu Musab al-Barnawi the leader of ISWAP, splintering the group into two factions. Meanwhile, thousands of villagers and residents of Maiduguri took up machetes or handmade muskets and joined a self-defence militia, the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), that held the gates of the city. The new president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner and former military dictator, ordered his generals to move their headquarters to Maiduguri. Neighbouring states such as Chad, Niger and Cameroon contributed troops to a multinational force. Within months the army had recaptured most big towns, pushing the insurgents into forests or Lake Chad, a mass of swamps where the borders of four countries meet.
Since then, though, stalemate has set in…The ISWAP has learned how to make roadside bombs and has become more skilled in conducting attacks. …It levies "taxes" on locals and erects roadblocks to extort money from passing traffic… It is building a proto-caliphate.
Nigeria's generals talk about "winning hearts and minds" but they are doing the opposite. The army has systematically cleared people from the countryside, burning their villages and packing them into squalid camps in Maiduguri and other "garrison towns". In all, some 2.4m people have been displaced by the fighting in Nigeria and neighbouring countries. T Most observers think that indiscriminate killings by the army and the forcing of people into garrison towns are fuelling the insurgency. There are almost no jobs in the camps. Access is through checkpoints manned by the army and CJTF, who demand bribes. Amnesty International, a human-rights group, says many women and girls have been raped in the camps and that hundreds if not thousands of people confined in them have died of starvation or a lack of medical care. … "It is like a factory for jihadis."
The Nigerian state's failure extends far beyond the camps. In In effect, Nigeria's north-east is a failed state within a dysfunctional one.
Excerpts from Jihad's Next Battleground, Economist, July 14, 2018, at 41
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, War and tagged al Qaeda, al-Shabab Somalia, Boko Haram Nigeria, islamic, Islamic State (IS), Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) on August 9, 2018 by Stoa.
How to Navigate the Rubble: DARPA
Imagine a natural disaster scenario, such as an earthquake, that inflicts widespread damage to buildings and structures, critical utilities and infrastructure, and threatens human safety. Having the ability to navigate the rubble and enter highly unstable areas could prove invaluable to saving lives or detecting additional hazards among the wreckage.
Dr. Ronald Polcawich, a DARPA program manager in the Microsystems Technology Office (MTO):"There are a number of environments that are inaccessible for larger robotic platforms. Smaller robotics systems could provide significant aide, but shrinking down these platforms requires significant advancement of the underlying technology."
Technological advances in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), additive manufacturing, piezoelectric actuators, and low-power sensors have allowed researchers to expand into the realm of micro-to-milli robotics. However, due to the technical obstacles experienced as the technology shrinks, these platforms lack the power, navigation, and control to accomplish complex tasks proficiently
To help overcome the challenges of creating extremely [Size, Weight and Power] SWaP-constrained microrobotics, DARPA is launching a new program called SHort-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms (SHRIMP). The goal of SHRIMP is to develop and demonstrate multi-functional micro-to-milli robotic platforms for use in natural and critical disaster scenarios. To achieve this mission, SHRIMP will explore fundamental research in actuator materials and mechanisms as well as power storage components, both of which are necessary to create the strength, dexterity, and independence of functional microrobotics platforms.
"The strength-to-weight ratio of an actuator influences both the load-bearing capability and endurance of a micro-robotic platform, while the maximum work density characterizes the capability of an actuator mechanism to perform high intensity tasks or operate over a desired duration," said Polcawich. "
Excerpts from Developing Microrobotics for Disaster Recovery and High-Risk Environments: SHRIMP program seeks to advance the state-of-the art in micro-to-milli robotics platforms and underlying technology, OUTREACH@DARPA.MIL, July 17, 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Energy, Espionage, War and tagged batteries, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Independent Microrobotic Platforms, insect-like drones, lethal autonomous robotics (LARs), micro-to-milli robotics, microrobotics, power storage, robotics in war, SHort-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms (SHRIMP), surveillance drones, SWaP-constrained microrobotics, swarm drones on July 24, 2018 by Stoa.
Sea Supremacy with Boat Drones
To protect the natural resources in the EEZ, which stretch 200 nautical miles from a country's coastline, countries need almost constant presence in the open seas. One option is unmanned surface vehicles (USVs)…
Israel recently discovered huge reservoirs of natural gas in the Mediterranean and these are threatened by the Hezbollah terror organization in Lebanon. This threat accelerated the development of advanced USVs by some Israeli defence companies. Rafael was the first to develop such a system. The company's Protector USV proved its capability to launch Spike ER missiles. Protector can carry a variety of weapons and equipment, including a water cannon, electronic warfare systems for protection and escort of naval vessels, mine countermeasures equipment, the Toplite electro-optical long-range detection and tracking system, and Spike missile…. It can also fit the Mini-Typhoon stabilized gun mount…
In Yemen, the Houthis attacks against navy and commercial ships are performed by Chinese made C-802 missiles and other weapons like anti-tank rockets launched from speed boats. "In such an arena, the Protector with the Spike ER missiles is the best solution for protecting such a vital connection between seas," the Rafael official said…Intelligence sources say that the Houthis have been building capabilities to perform "Swarm Attacks" using a number of high speed boats.
Elbit systems, another Israeli major defence company has developed the Seagull USV. This is a 12-meter long vessel that can be operated from a mother-ship or from shore stations…And Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has also joined the trend and developed the Katana USV …Meteor Aerospace, a new Israeli company developed the Orca. The Orca vessel is a 13 metres long, and weighs eight tons.
Excerpts from Arie Egozi, Israeli unmanned boats deliver firepower on the high seas, Defence web, June 20, 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Markets, War and tagged Israel USVs, marine drones, Protector USV, swarm attacks with speed boats, unmanned boats, unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) on July 12, 2018 by Stoa.
The De-humanization of a Nation
Rebels and government troops in Congo committed atrocities including mass rape, cannibalism and dismembering civilians, according to testimony published by a team of UN human rights experts who said the world must pay heed.
The team investigating conflict in the Kasai region of Democratic Republic of Congo told the UN Human Rights Council they suspected all sides were guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their detailed 126-page report catalogued gruesome attacks committed in the conflict, which erupted in late 2016, involving Kamuina Nsapu and Bana Mura militias and Congo's armed forces, the FARDC.
The testimony included boys forced to rape their mothers, little girls told witchcraft would allow them to catch bullets, and women forced to choose gang-rape or death. "One victim told us in May 2017 she saw a group of Kamuina Nsapu militia, some sporting female genitals (clitorises and vaginas) as medals," the report said. "Some witnesses recalled seeing people cutting up, cooking and eating human flesh, including penises cut from men who were still alive and from corpses, especially FARDC and drinking human blood."
Lead investigator Bacre Waly Ndiaye told the Council in one incident, at least 186 men and boys from a single village were beheaded by Kamuina Nsapu, many of whose members were children forced to fight, unarmed or wielding sticks and were convinced magic made them invulnerable. Many child soldiers were killed when FARDC soldiers machine-gunned them indiscriminately, he said. "The bodies were often buried in mass graves or were sometimes piled in trucks by soldiers to be buried elsewhere." There were initially thought to be about 86 mass graves, but after investigating the team suspects there may be hundreds, he said.
Excerpts from DR Congo war atrocities, Reuters, July 4, 2018
Rape in Congo
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Human Rights, War and tagged Bana Mura Congo, cannibalism Congo, children use in war, children use in war Congol, Congo atrocities, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Kamuina Nsapu Congo, Kasai Congo rebellion, mass graves Congo, rape as a weapon of war, rape Congo on July 4, 2018 by Stoa.
How the World Looks Like in 10000 Air Strikes
Amnesty International researchers visited 42 Coalition air strike sites across the ruined city of Raqqa, Syria and interviewed 112 civilian residents who had survived the carnage and lost loved ones. The accounts detailed in the report, 'War of annihilation': Devastating Toll on Civilians, Raqqa – Syria, leave gaping holes in the Coalition's insistence that their forces did enough to minimize civilian harm….
"IS's brutal four-year rule in Raqqa was rife with war crimes. But the violations of IS, including the use of civilians as human shields, do not relieve the Coalition of their obligations to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians. What levelled the city and killed and injured so many civilians was the US-led Coalition's repeated use of explosive weapons in populated areas where they knew civilians were trapped. Even precision weapons are only as precise as their choice of targets."
Shortly before the military campaign, US Defence Secretary James Mattis promised a "war of annihilation" against IS. From 6 June to 17 October 2017, the US-led Coalition operation to oust IS from its so-called "capital" Raqqa killed and injured thousands of civilians and destroyed much of the city….Residents were trapped as fighting raged in Raqqa's streets between IS militants and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters, supported by the Coalition's relentless air and artillery strikes. IS mined the escape routes and shot at civilians trying to flee. Hundreds of civilians were killed: some in their homes; some in the very places where they had sought refuge; and others as they tried to flee.
US, British and French Coalition forces carried out tens of thousands of air strikes and US forces admitted to firing 30,000 artillery rounds during the offensive on Raqqa. US forces were responsible for more than 90% of the air strikes…
Amnesty International is urging Coalition members to investigate impartially and thoroughly allegations of violations and civilian casualties, and to publicly acknowledge the scale and gravity of the loss of civilian lives and destruction of civilian property in Raqqa…They must disclose the findings of their investigations, as well as key information about the strikes necessary for assessing their compliance with international humanitarian law. They must review the procedures by which they decide the credibility of civilian casualty allegations and they must ensure justice and reparation for victims of violations. They also have a responsibility to assist with gruelling demining and reconstruction work under way in Raqqa in a more meaningful way than at present.
Excerpts Syria: Raqqa in ruins and civilians devastated after US-led 'war of annihilation', Amnesty International, June 5, 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Human Rights, War and tagged humanitarian law, Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, law of war, Raqqa Syria, Syria civil war, Syria civilian casualties, Syria intervention on June 26, 2018 by Stoa.
How to Break the Rules without Breaking the Law
In 2009, coalition casualties in Afghanistan had as much as doubled in the space of a year. Civilian casualties climbed to 2412. It was 2009. Coalition forces had been there since 2001 with no end and, to this point, no real campaign plan in sight…
Chris Masters, who was the only journalist to have been embedded with Australian special forces soldiers (SASR) in Afghanistan, believes a desensitisation occurred within the forces that allegedly allowed a "kill count mentality to develop"…SASR's sabre squadrons are the tips of a trident of land, air and water operators, with the "wateries" an elite within an elite. And like their US counterparts, the Navy SEALs, unquestionable ability can come tinged with arrogance. In SASR, their rock-star persona did not sit easily with everyone when modesty was supposed to be a core value…
The most prominent allegation is traced to an assault on a compound codenamed Whiskey 108 at Kakarak in Oruzgan on Easter Sunday 2009…As shooting erupted, one operator remembers thinking: "I am going to die today." Instead, methodically, they closed in on the remaining enemy, killing them one by one. At this time Australian weapons were again heard firing and soldiers entering the compound saw something hurled from a window. It was an older man with a prosthetic leg, shot and now lying dead. The prosthetic leg was souvenired and returned to Perth to be fashioned into a drinking vessel. What troubled a range of witnesses was not so much the killing of the men, who whether armed or unarmed were considered Taliban. It was more that the grim task of pulling the trigger had been pushed onto a "rookie". As one operator told me: "If s— needs to be done, do it yourself."
In rotations to come, the concept of blooding became well known. What became more disturbing was a suspicion the practise was not only about a first kill but also executing prisoners. ..What was not thought through was how many of the "blooded rookies" would be haunted well into the future by what was done…Soldiers began to refer to some of their members having gone "up the Congo", into the moral wilderness of novelist Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Numerous witnesses have spoken of one SASR team posting a kill board on their door. The patrol commander was heard talking about needing more kills and subsequently of the goal being met….
As the mission wore on, further alleged breaches of the rules of armed conflict began to emerge, conspicuously contained to Special Forces and most particularly to SASR. The "Who Dares Wins" ethos of the regiment encourages the testing of boundaries. As they often tell themselves, "you break the rules but not the law".
Exceprts from Chris Masters, Australia's ugly turn in Afghanistan, Sydney Morning Herald, June 8, 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Human Rights, War and tagged Afghanistan, Afghanistan civilian casualties, Afghanistan torture, Australian special forces soldiers (SASR), bugsplats, going up Congo Afghanistan, Heart of Darkness., the concept of blooding Afghanistan on June 19, 2018 by Stoa.
A Strategy of Fear: boko haram
In July 2011, the Nigerian government unveiled plans to make telecommunications companies dedicate toll-free phone lines so civilians could report Boko Haram activity. Months later, insurgent spokesman Abu Qaqa threatened to attack service providers and Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) offices.
Eight months later, Boko Haram made good on Qaqa's threat. The militant group launched a two-day attack on telecommunications towers belonging to several providers in five cities: Bauchi, Gombe, Kano, Maiduguri and Potiskum…. Institute for Security Studies (ISS) researcher Omar S. Mahmood told ADF …'it's a pretty powerful message if Boko Haram comes out and says, 'I'm going to attack X because of this,' and then they go out and they do it," Mahmood said. "It just serves to make their next warning even more intimidating and effective."
Mahmood, in his March 2017 paper for the ISS titled "More than propaganda: A review of Boko Haram's public messages," showed that a significant number of Boko Haram messages between 2010 and 2016 issued warnings and threatened violence. In fact, warnings and threats constitute the second-most-common theme of the group's messaging out of the 145 messages studied…
Boko Haram demonstrated this tendency further in its threat against schools. In January 2012, Shekau complained publicly about alleged mistreatment of Islamic schools and students, and he threatened to launch attacks. Again, Boko Haram followed through. From January to early March 2012, militants destroyed at least a dozen schools in the Maiduguri region of Borno State…
Ties between messaging and attacks also can be seen in Boko Haram's assault on Nigerian media and the nation's oil industry. As Qaqa complained that the media misrepresented Boko Haram, insurgents bombed This Daynewspaper offices in Abuja and Kaduna in April 2012…In June 2014, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb outside a Lagos oil refinery.
Boko Haram's highest-profile action is the kidnapping of 276 Chibok schoolgirls in 2014. On April 14, militants attacked a boarding school in Chibok, Borno State, in the middle of the night. Insurgents raided dormitories, loaded girls into trucks and drove away. Some girls jumped into bushes as trucks rushed away, leaving 219 children held captive. The atrocity drew worldwide condemnation and parallels a long-standing grievance of Boko Haram: the desire for the release of incarcerated members.
In October 2016, after months of negotiations, Boko Haram released 21 of the Chibok girls in exchange for a monetary ransom, Daily Trust reported. In May 2017, insurgents swapped another 82 of the girls for five militant leaders.
The 2015 ISIS alignment was the beginning of big changes in messaging for Boko Haram…Boko Haram's most powerful period was from 2013 to 2015, when it was capturing and holding territory, and dealing setbacks to military forces. By late 2015 and through 2017, Nigerian and regional military assaults began to take their toll on Boko Haram…
In August 2016, Boko Haram split into two factions: One is led by pugnacious spokesman Shekau; the other by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, ISIS' choice for leader….The split also has left al-Barnawi's ISIS-aligned faction the clear winner in terms of potential longevity and lethality, Mahmood said. Shekau's wing is just trying to survive, but it still uses ISIS logos in messages.
Excerpts from From Message to Mayhem, A Study of Boko Haram's Public Communications Can Offer Hints About Its Strategy, Africa Defense Forum, Mar. 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, War and tagged Boko Haram, Islamic State (IS), Islamic State in the Greater Sahel, Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), jihadists, Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), terrorism, war on terrorism on June 7, 2018 by Stoa.
Flying off the Shelves: the entrenching of drone warfare
A 2018 report published by Drone Wars UK reveals that over the last five years the number of countries actively using armed drones has quadrupled. Drone Wars: The Next Generation demonstrates that from just three states (US, UK and Israel) in 2013, there are now a further nine who have deployed armed drones in a variety of roles including for armed conflict and counter-terror operations. The report also shows that a further nine states are very close to having armed drone capabilities, almost doubling the number of existing users. To this number, we have added five non-state actors who have used armed drones, which will take the number of active operators of armed drones to over 25 in the next few years.
As is well known, China has sold armed drones to a number of countries around the world. Since 2013, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE and Egypt have begun operating armed Chinese drones whilst another four countries (Jordan, Myanmar, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) are thought to have recently taken possession of, or be in discussion about the sale of, Chinese drones. These Wing Loong and CH series drones are cheaper and less powerful than US Predators and Reapers. As, according to their specifications, they are not capable of delivering a payload of at least 500 kg to a range of at least 300 km they do not fall into the category of systems that would be refused under Category 1 of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) as the US systems do.
Turkey, Pakistan and Iran are actively using their own manufactured drones. Iran has, it seems, supplied Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis with armed drones while ISIS and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) have attached small explosives to off-the-shelf drones. Turkey are thought to be concluding deal with Qatar and the Ukrain eand South Korea are very close to beginning production of their own armed drones.
As for the larger countries that one might expect to have already deployed armed drones, such as Russia and India, they still appear to be some distance from producing workable models…Several cross-European projects are underway to develop indigenous armed drones within the EU.
Excerpts from New research shows rise in number of states deploying armed drones, Press Release from Drone Wars UK, May 17, 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Espionage, Markets, War and tagged armed drones, CH series drones, China exports drones, Chinese drones, drones Europe, drones Pakistan, drones Saudi Arabia, drones Turkey, international markets for drones, ISIS drones, Israel drones, Missile Technology Control Regime, Pakistan drones, unmanned aerial system (UAS), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) China, wing loong drone on May 29, 2018 by Stoa.
Like Afghanistan, Like Niger?
On the scorching edge of the Sahara Desert, the U.S. Air Force is building a base for armed drones, the newest front in America's battle against the growing extremist threat in Africa's vast Sahel region. Three hangars and the first layers of a runway command a sandy, barren field. Niger Air Base 201 is expected to be functional in 2019. The base, a few miles outside Agadez and built at the request of Niger's government, will eventually house fighter jets and MQ-9 drones transferred from the capital Niamey. The drones, with surveillance and added striking capabilities, will have a range enabling them to reach a number of West and North African countries.
Few knew of the American military's presence in this desperately poor, remote West African country until October 2018, when an ambush by Islamic State group-linked extremists killed four U.S. soldiers and five Nigeriens.
The $110 million project is the largest troop labor construction project in U.S. history, according to Air Force officials. It will cost $15 million annually to operate…. Already the U.S. military presence here is the second largest in Africa behind the sole permanent U.S. base on the continent, in the tiny Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. "We are afraid of falling back into the same situation as in Afghanistan, with many mistakes made by American soldiers who did not always know the difference between a wedding ceremony and a training of terrorist groups," said Amadou Roufai, a Nigerien administration official. Civic leader Nouhou Mahamadou also expressed concerns.
"The presence of foreign bases in general and American in particular is a serious surrender of our sovereignty and a serious attack on the morale of the Nigerien military," he said.
The number of U.S. military personnel in Niger has risen over the past few years from 100 to 800, the second largest concentration in Africa after the 4,000 in Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. About 500 personnel are working on the new air and drone base and the base camp is marked with an American and Nigerien flag.
Excerpts from Carley Petesch, US Builds Drone Base in Niger, Crossroads of Extremism Fight, Associated Press, April 23, 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, War and tagged drone base Agadez Niger, drone base Niger, drones, drones Niger, MQ-9 Reaper drone, Niger, Niger Air Base 201, Reaper, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), US Air Force on April 24, 2018 by Stoa.
Fleas in the Barn: a Joseph Kabila et al. story
Inongo is the provincial capital of the Mai-Ndombe Province, a 13-million-hectare area located some 650 km northeast of Kinshasa, Demoractic Republic of Conglo, DRC.
The forests of Mai-Ndombe… are rich in rare and precious woods (red wood, black wood, blue wood, tola, kambala, lifake, among others). It is also home to about 7,500 bonobos, an endangered primate…The forests constitute a vital platform providing livelihoods for some 73,000 indigenous individuals, mostly Batwa (Pygmies), who live here alongside the province's 1.8 million population, many of whom with no secure land rights. Recent studies also have revealed that the province – and indeed the forests – boasts significant reserves of diamond of precious metals nickel, copper, oil and coal, and vast quantities of uranium lying deep inside the Lake Mai-Ndombe.
In an effort to save these precious forests, the World Bank in 2016 approved DRC's REDD+ programmes aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fight forest's deforestation and degradation, which it would fund to the tune of 90 million dollars annually. The projects, which are currently estimated at 20, have since transformed the Mai-Ndombe Province into a testing ground for international climate schemes. And as part of the projects, indigenous and other local people caring for the forests and depending on them for their livelihoods were supposed to be rewarded for their efforts.
However, Marine Gauthier, a Paris-based expert who authored a report on the sorry state of the Mai-Ndombe forest, seems to have found serious flaws in these ambitious programmes. The report, released a few days before the International Day of Forests on March 21, 2018 by the Rights and Resources' Initiative (RRI), cited weak recognition of communities' land rights, and recommended that key prerequisites should be addressed before any other REDD+ funds are invested. In the interim, it said, REDD+ investments should be put on hold…..
Under the DRC's 2014 Forest Code, indigenous people and local communities have the legal right to own forest covering an area of up to 50,000 hectares.Thirteen communities in the territories of Mushie and Bolobo in the Mai-Ndombe province have since asked for formal title of a total of 65,308 hectares of land, reports said, adding that only 300 hectares have been legally recognised for each community – a total of only 3,900 hectares.
Pretoria-based Donnenfeld added: "My guess is that the government is more interested in selling these resources to multinationals than it in seeing it benefit the community….Gauthier pointed out that…"REDD+ opens the door to more land-grabbing by external stakeholders appealed…. Local communities' land rights should be recognised through existing legal possibilities such as local community forest concessions so that they can keep protecting the forest, hence achieving REDD+ objectives."
Excerpts from DR Congo's Mai-Ndombe Forest 'Savaged' As Landless Communities Struggle, IPS, Apr. 17, 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Environment, Human Rights, indigenous peoples, Markets, power elite, War and tagged China and Congo, Congo minerals, Congo rainforest, Congo uranium, corruption Congo, MONUSCO, nited Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on April 19, 2018 by Stoa.
Up, Close and Personal: How to Destroy the Enemy
Deep southern Negev desert, Israel, there is a small town called Baladia, with a main square, five mosques, cafés, a hospital, multi-storey blocks of flats, a kasbah and a cemetery. Oddly, it also has a number of well-constructed tunnels. The only people milling around in its streets are Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers. Baladia, the Arab word for city, is part of the Tze'elim army base**. It has been built to provide a realistic training ground for the next time the IDF is required to go into Gaza to destroy Hamas missile launchers…Acceptance among Western armies that future fights are most likely to take place in cities. Megacities with populations of more than 10m are springing up across Africa and Asia. They are often ringed by closely packed slums controlled by neighbourhood gangs. Poor governance, high unemployment and criminality make them fertile territory for violent extremism.
It is hardly surprising that non-state adversaries of the West and its allies should seek asymmetric advantage by taking the fight into cities. Air power and precision-guided munitions lose some of their effectiveness in urban warfare because their targets can hide easily and have no scruples about using a densely packed civilian population as a shield.
Valuable lessons have been learned from the battle for Sadr City, a large suburb of Baghdad, in 2008, Israel going into Gaza in 2014 and the defeat of Islamic State (IS) in Mosul 2017….As General Mark Milley, the head of the US Army, puts it, "it took the infantry and the armour and the special operations commandos to go into that city, house by house, block by block, room by room…and it's taken quite a while to do it, and at high cost." He thinks that his force should now focus less on fighting in traditional environments such as woodland and desert and more on urban warfare.
To that end, he advocates smaller but well-armoured tanks that can negotiate city streets, and helicopters with a narrower rotor span that can fly between buildings. At the organisational level, that means operating with smaller, more compartmentalised fighting units with far more devolved decision-making powers…
Western military forces should still enjoy a significant technological edge. They will have a huge range of kit, including tiny bird- or insect-like unmanned aerial vehicles that can hover outside buildings or find their way in. Unmanned ground vehicles can reduce the risk of resupplying troops in contested areas and provide medical evacuation for injured soldiers, and some of them will carry weapons….
For all the advances that new technologies can offer, General Milley says it is a fantasy to think that wars can now be won without blood and sacrifice: "After the shock and awe comes the march and fight…to impose your political will on the enemy requires you…to destroy that enemy up close with ground forces."
Excerpt from House to House in the The New Battlegrounds, Economist Special Report, the Future of War, Jan. 27, 2018
***In 2005, the Israeli Defense Forces, with assistance from the United States, built the Urban Warfare Training Center at the Tze'elim Army Base, at a cost of $45 million. Nicknamed "Baladia" it is a 7.4 square mile training center used to instruct soldiers in urban warfare techniques, and consists of an imitation Middle Eastern style city with multiple multistory buildings. It has been used to train various military organizations, including the US Army and UN peacekeepers. Wikipedia
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Espionage, War and tagged Baladia town Negev desert, bird-like drones, insect-like drones, Israel, swarm drones, swarm robots, Tze'elim army base, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles, urban warfare, war in cities on March 5, 2018 by Stoa.
The Power of Yes-Men
American military engagement in Niger is a $110 million drone base the U.S. is building about 450 miles northeast of Niamey in Agadez…Its existence was partially confirmed in February 2018, inadvertently, when it was discovered that Strava, a fitness app used mostly by westerners, had released location data that showed the global movements of the users of workout trackers like Fitbit — and the data showed unusual activity in far-off Aguelal, Agadez, Niger.
On the southeast edge of the civilian airport, accessible by tracks in the sand used mainly to exit the town, is Nigerien Air Base 201, or in common parlance "the American base." The base, scheduled for completion in late 2018, is technically the property of the Nigerien military, though it is paid for, built, and operated by Americans. It is being constructed on land formerly used by Tuareg cattle-herders. … The U.S. currently flies drones out of an airport in Niamey, but those operations will be shifted to Agadez once the new base is completed.
When asked to confirm the American presence in those areas of Niger, U.S. Africa Command spokesperson Samantha Reho replied, "I can confirm there are approximately 800 Department of Defense personnel (military, civilian, and contractor) currently working in Niger, making that country the second-highest concentration of DoD people across the continent, with the first being in Djibouti at Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa."
The U.S. is just one of several Western militaries that have established and strengthened military ties to Niger over the past few years. France has had soldiers in the country since 2013, when it launched Opération Serval in neighboring Mali. In 2015, France reopened a colonial fort in Madama, close to the border with Libya — unthinkable during the times of Moammar Gadhafi; the Libyan leader maintained a sphere of influence in the region that would have been at odds with a French military presence. Germany sent its own troops in Niger to support the United Nations peacekeeping mission across the border in Mali, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel even visited Niger in 2017. And Italy recently announced it would send 470 troops to a French base in the north of Niger to fight migrant transporters….
The base in Agadez is about 6 square kilometers, though most of the land is yet to be developed. ….. The base is tucked away and hidden from Agadez first by the 8-to-10-foot wall that separates the city of 125,000 from the airport, and it is surrounded by a barbed wire fence with sandbags, so despite there being a few hundred Americans in Agadez, you would hardly know they were there unless you went looking. Both the Nigerien and the American governments prefer to keep it this way…
The man the middle is Mahamadou Issoufou, the president of Niger. In power for six years, he has adopted a clear strategy for trying to keep control of things – by aligning himself closely with Europe and the United States, while presiding over an electoral system that his opponents describe as rigged. This is not a recipe for stability in a country that has had little of it since its founding in 1960, at the end of French colonial rule.
Issoufou is a trained engineer and a former secretary-general of Somaïr, a uranium mine that was run by the French company Areva. Until migration and terrorism, uranium was the focal point of outside, particularly French, interest in Niger. France's electricity grid is powered by nuclear energy, and Areva's uranium concessions in Niger provide up to one-fifth of the uranium necessary to power that grid. Issoufou's predecessor, Mamadou Tandja, had sparred with the French over the concession, and in 2009, then-French President Nicholas Sarkozy visited Niger to negotiate a deal on opening a new mine called Imouraren. After a $1.2 billion deal was struck, Tandja tried to reverse the constitution to stay in power for a third term, and after street protests, a group of low-ranking army officers carried out a coup d'état.
When the transition period ended with Issoufou's election in 2011, the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan caused a sharp downturn in global uranium prices. Areva dropped its plans for Imouraren, and Issoufouacquiesced to the French firm's plans for delaying the mine until prices rose, denting economic growth prospects for the country. But despite losing out on Imouraren, Issoufou quickly became a donor darling and found that the closer he was to France and the West, the better his image and the more firm his hold on political power. Issoufou was criticized heavily for going to Paris to attend the "Je Suis Charlie" march in January 2015, and some human rights organizations view him as a lackey of the West. He works with Image Sept, a French firm with close ties to the Parisian political elite, to manage his image.A couple of months before his re-election in 2016, Issoufou jailed his main political opponent and former close ally, Hama Amadou of the Moden Lumana party….
Many people I spoke to in Niger feel their country has had its autonomy usurped by Westerners. "The reality is that Niger is not at a level where it can say yes or no to the French or Americans. … We only have sovereignty on paper," said Djibril Abarché, president of the Nigerien Human Rights Association.
Exceprts from Joe Penny, Drones in the Sahara, the Intercept, Feb. 18, 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Espionage, Human Rights, War and tagged drone base Agadez Niger, drone base Niger, drones Niger, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) Niger on February 19, 2018 by Stoa.
Handcrafted Terror
An attack on Russian forces in Syria on January 5th, 2018 by 13 home-made drones is a good example of "asymmetric" warfare..The craft involved in these attacks resembled hobbyists' model aircraft. They had three-metre wingspans, were built crudely of wood and plastic, and were powered by lawnmower engines. Each carried ten home-made shrapnel grenades under its wings. The drones were guided by GPS and had a range of 100km. The electronics involved were off-the-shelf components, and the total cost of each drone was perhaps a couple of thousand dollars. The airframes bore a resemblance to those of Russian Orlan-10 drones, several of which have been shot down by rebel forces in Syria. The craft may thus have been a cheap, garage-built copy of captured kit.
Guerrillas have been using commercial drones since 2015. Islamic State (IS), one of the groups active in Syria, makes extensive use of quadcopters to drop grenades. In 2017 alone the group posted videos of over 200 attacks. IS has also deployed fixed-wing aircraft based on the popular Skywalker X8 hobby drone. These have longer ranges than quadcopters and can carry bigger payloads. Other groups in Syria, and in Iraq as well, employ similar devices. Their use has spread, too, to non-politically-motivated criminals. In October, four Mexicans allegedly linked to a drug cartel were arrested with a bomb-carrying drone…
Existing defences are not geared up to cope with small drones, which are difficult to spot, identify and track, and which may be too numerous to stop. Jamming might be thought an obvious solution….Many jammers, with names like Dedrone, DroneDefender and DroneShield, have already been employed by various countries. …Drones are, however, becoming increasingly autonomous. This means there is no operator link to jam…But new technologies such as optical navigation (which permits a drone to compare its surroundings with an on-board electronic map, and thus to know where it is) will make even GPS jammers useless. Hence the need for "kinetic solutions", to shoot drones down.
Small drones are surprisingly hard targets, however. Iraqi forces in Mosul used to joke that trying to deal with an IS drone attack was like being at a wedding celebration: everyone fired their Kalashnikovs into the air with no effect. A recent American army manual …suggests that rather than aiming directly at a drone, the entire squad should fire their weapons at a fixed point ahead of it, hoping to bring the small drones down with a curtain of fire. The manual also advises commanders that the best course of action may be "immediate relocation of the unit to a safer location"….
A similar problem applies at sea, where billion-dollar ships might have their defences overwhelmed by squadrons of cheap, jerry-built drones. The mainstay of American naval air defence is Aegis, an orchestrated arrangement of radars, computers, missiles and cannons. The short-range element of Aegis is a Dalek-like, rapid-fire cannon called Phalanx, which spits out 75 rounds a second and can shoot down incoming cruise missiles. This will not cope well with lots of small drones, though. The navy is now upgrading Aegis's software to handle multiple simultaneous incoming targets by scheduling bursts of fire to destroy as many members of a swarm as possible. It is doubtful, however, whether one gun could account for more than a handful of attackers coming in from all directions at once. An unclassified study suggests that it could be overwhelmed by as few as eight [handcrafted drones].
Developers of drone-countering measures hope to overcome that by using laser weapons…An American army document from 2016 thus emphasises the importance of stopping drones "left of launch"—that is, before they can take off. IS drone workshops and operators have been attacked to stop the drone threat… Until adequate defences are in place, then, guerrilla drone swarms will be a real danger.
Excerpt from Buzz, buzz, you're dead, Economist, Feb. 10, at 70
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, War and tagged handcrafted drones, home-made drones, small unmanned air systems (sUAS), swarm drones, swarm robots, unmanned, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on February 14, 2018 by Stoa.
Demining with Bare Hands: Benghazi
Mines planted during more than three years of war in Benghazi (2014-2017) are taking a high toll on under-equipped deminers and residents trying to return to districts where protracted battles took place. Military engineers striving to clear the explosives lack mine detectors and are working with basic tools and their bare hands. Their task is painstaking and extremely dangerous: 50 have been killed and 60 wounded, according to a military source.
The war in Benghazi erupted in 2014, when Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar began battling ISIS and other opponents, part of a broader conflict that spread in Libya after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi seven years ago. Despite warnings from the military and indications of mined areas scribbled on walls, some long-displaced residents impatient to rebuild their lives have gone home, with deadly consequences. [ISIS had used abandoned houses for shelter durng the war. Before they retreated they planted mines in the houses].
Excerpts from Mines still claim legs and lives in Libya's Benghazi, months after war ceased, Reuters, Jan. 21, 2017
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, War and tagged battle of Benghazi, demining, mines on January 31, 2018 by Stoa.
Thugs and Lambs: the war in Yemen
A withering United Nations report on Yemen's civil war provides fresh evidence about the extent to which Saudi Arabia and Iran have intervened in the conflict, pursuing their regional proxy war even as Yemen disintegrated into "warring statelets" that would be difficult to reunite. The U.N. panel said there were "strong indications of the supply of arms-related material manufactured in, or emanating from, the Islamic Republic of Iran," in violation of a U.N. embargo on Yemen.
The U.N. experts were particularly critical of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition. The U.N. previously had said that the majority of the more than 5,000 civilian deaths in the conflict are a result of the airstrikes, which are carried out by a handful of coalition countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, often using U.S.-supplied munitions. The report, which has not yet been made public, was obtained by The Washington Post…
Eight million people, or a third of the Yemen's population, are facing famine. A cholera outbreak that has affected roughly a million people is one of the largest ever recorded. More than 10,000 people have been killed since the war began…
At least four attacks on Saudi Arabia were carried out with missiles capable of a range "beyond that normally expected of the known missiles" in the Houthi arsenal, the panel said. The U.N. panel examined the remnants of two of the missiles – fired July 22 and Nov. 4, 2017 – and found they were consistent with the design of an Iranian missile and "almost certainly produced by the same manufacturer." While the report criticized Iran for failing to halt the transfer of weapons, the panel could not say with certainty how they were transported to the Houthis or who the supplier was.
In reviewing the conduct of Saudi-led military activity, the U.N. panel examined 10 airstrikes last year that killed 157 people, including 85 children, and found that "measures taken by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in its targeting process to minimize child casualties, if any, remain largely ineffective." And a coalition committee tasked with investigating the airstrikes had in some cases denied that strikes had taken place despite "clear evidence" to the contrary, the report said… The panel had corroborated media reports that the United Arab Emirates – part of the Saudi-led military coalition – had tortured prisoners under its control. The Saudi-led coalition, which enforced a blockade on Yemen, was using the "threat of starvation as a bargaining tool and an instrument of war."The Houthis had carried out extrajudicial executions and mass detentions, fueling a cycle of revenge that "may last for years."…"Political decision makers on all sides are not bearing the brunt of the war," the report added. "Yemeni civilians are."
Excerpts from KAREEM FAHIM A United Nations probe has detailed the fallout of the proxy war in Yemen between the Saudi coalition and Iran, Washington Post, Jan 12, 2018
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, War and tagged Houthis and Iran, oil and civil war Yemen, Saudi Arabia war in Yemen, yemen and iran, Yemen war on January 17, 2018 by Stoa.
Killer Robotic Insects
On November 12, 2017, a video called "Slaughterbots" was uploaded to YouTube. … It is set in a near-future in which small drones fitted with face-recognition systems and shaped explosive charges can be programmed to seek out and kill known individuals or classes of individuals (those wearing a particular uniform, for example). In one scene, the drones are shown collaborating with each other to gain entrance to a building. One acts as a petard, blasting through a wall to grant access to the others…
[M]ilitary laboratories around the planet are busy developing small, autonomous robots for use in warfare, both conventional and unconventional. In America, in particular, a programme called MAST (Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology), which has been run by the US Army Research Laboratory in Maryland, is wrapping up this month after ten successful years….. Its successor, the Distributed and Collaborative Intelligent Systems and Technology (DCIST) programme, which began earlier this year, is now getting into its stride….Along with flying drones, MAST's researchers have been developing pocket-sized battlefield scouts that can hop or crawl ahead of soldiers. DCIST's purpose is to take these autonomous robots and make them co-operate. The result, if the project succeeds, will be swarms of devices that can take co-ordinated action to achieve a joint goal.
If swarms of small robots can be made to collaborate autonomously, someone, somewhere will do it…[Many of these small robots are today] cyclocopters …of less than 30 grams. Such machines can outperform polycopters...Cyclocopter aerodynamics is more like that of insects than of conventional aircraft…Cyclocopters get better as they get smaller. They are also quieter…[Another innovation involves] robots…that hop.One of the most advanced is Salto, developed by the Biomimetic Millisystems Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Salto… has the agility to bounce over uneven surfaces and also to climb staircases…
Bouncing over the rubble of a collapsed building is not the only way to explore it. Another is to weave through the spaces between the debris. Researchers at the Biomimetic Millisystems lab are working on that, too. Their solution resembles a cockroach.
Getting into a building, whether collapsed or intact, is one thing. Navigating around it without human assistance is quite another. For this purpose MAST has been feeding its results to the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)… The next challenge…is getting the robots to swarm and co-ordinate their behavior effectively.
Excerpt from Miniature Robots: Bot Flies, Economist, Dec. 16, 2017
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Espionage, War and tagged armed drones, Biomimetic Millisystems, Distributed and Collaborative Intelligent Systems and Technology (DCIST), drones gremlins, drones helicopters, Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST), slaughterbots, small drones, small robots, surgical strikes drones, swarm drones, swarm robots on January 10, 2018 by Stoa.
UN Peacekeepers as Lackeys of Governments
Peace-keeping mission of United Nations is need the consent of the host governments to operate; the UN cannot invade. But too often agencies and blue helmets (as in the headgear worn by peacekeepers) are lackeys of autocrats, forming "abusive" relationships with those in power, according to Richard Gowan of Columbia University. This undermines the UN's claim to moral authority.
The operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a case in point. The UN has deployed peacekeepers there since 1999, and MONUSCO, the French acronym by which the mission is known, now has about 16,000 troops, and costs more than $1bn a year. Since 2016, the UN has failed to prevent violence that has forced over 1m people to flee their homes. Troops get away with defining their operating boundaries conservatively. Perversely, they are rewarded for not using their kit, as they are reimbursed for equipment returned in good condition. Meanwhile MONUSCO cannot easily get rid of underperforming civilian staff, partly because of pressure from trade unions but also because of the complex way in which UN headquarters imposes its choice of recruits on the mission.
Another $1bn-per-year mission, UNMISS, has done almost nothing to prevent the descent into civil war and famine since South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011. The 12,500 peacekeepers have a mandate to protect civilians, but have failed to do so. In August 2016 aid workers were raped, beaten and robbed by South Sudanese government troops just minutes away from the main UN compound in Juba, the capital. Despite desperate phone and text messages from the victims, the 2,000 or so troops never stirred. "[The blue helmets] are supposed to protect civilians," admits a UN official in South Sudan. "But they don't. Something is upside down. It's not working." One reason for the failure is that the mission asks permission from the government before it sends out troops…But since it is often the government carrying out the massacres, permission is often refused or delayed…
Excerpt from The UN in Conflict Areas: Looking the Other Way, Economist, Oct. 28, 2017
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Human Rights, War and tagged MONUSCO, rape as a weapon of war, rape Darfur, UN Peacekeeping, United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, war atrocities, war crimes on December 4, 2017 by Stoa.
Killing them like Flies: the Enduring Myth of Precision Strikes
The American-led war against the Islamic State began in August 2014. …In the effort to expel ISIS from Iraq and Syria, the coalition has conducted more than 27,500 strikes to date [Nov. 2017], deploying everything from Vietnam-era B-52 bombers to modern Predator drones. That overwhelming air power has made it possible for local ground troops to overcome heavy resistance and retake cities throughout the region. "U.S. and coalition forces work very hard to be precise in airstrikes," Maj. Shane Huff, a spokesman for the Central Command, told us, and as a result "are conducting one of the most precise air campaigns in military history."
The US military planners describe a target-selection process grounded in meticulously gathered intelligence, technological wizardry, carefully designed bureaucratic hurdles and extraordinary restraint. Intelligence analysts pass along proposed targets to "targeteers," who study 3-D computer models as they calibrate the angle of attack. A team of lawyers evaluates the plan, and — if all goes well — the process concludes with a strike so precise that it can, in some cases, destroy a room full of enemy fighters and leave the rest of the house intact.
The coalition usually announces an airstrike within a few days of its completion. It also publishes a monthly report assessing allegations of civilian casualties. Those it deems credible are generally explained as unavoidable accidents — a civilian vehicle drives into the target area moments after a bomb is dropped, for example. The coalition reports that since August 2014, it has killed tens of thousands of ISIS fighters and, according to our tally of its monthly summaries, 466 civilians in Iraq.
NY Times reporting…found that one in five of the coalition strikes we identified resulted in civilian death, a rate more than 31 times that acknowledged by the coalition. It is at such a distance from official claims that, in terms of civilian deaths, this may be the least transparent war in recent American history. Our reporting, moreover, revealed a consistent failure by the coalition to investigate claims properly or to keep records that make it possible to investigate the claims at all. While some of the civilian deaths we documented were a result of proximity to a legitimate ISIS target, many others appear to be the result simply of flawed or outdated intelligence that conflated civilians with combatants. In this system, Iraqis are considered guilty until proved innocent. Those who survive the strikes, people like…remain marked as possible ISIS sympathizers, with no discernible path to clear their names.
Excerpts from AZMAT KHAN and ANAND GOPA, The Uncounted, New York Times, Nov. 16, 2017
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, War and tagged B-52 bomber, bombing civilians, bugsplats, civilian casualties, civilian casualties Iraq, drone war, precise air strikes on November 23, 2017 by Stoa.
When Thugs Become States
South Sudan President Salva Kiir's government is using food as a weapon of war to target civilians by blocking life-saving aid in some areas, United Nations sanctions monitors told the Security Council in a confidential report (November 2017). During 2016 and 2017, the UN monitors said a military campaign by government troops in Wau and surrounding areas in Western Bahr el-Ghazal targeted civilians on ethnic grounds and displaced more than 100,000.
"The government has during much of 2017 deliberately prevented life-saving food assistance from reaching some citizens," the monitors wrote. "These actions amount to using food as a weapon of war with the intent to inflict suffering on civilians the government views as opponents to its agenda."
One humanitarian assessment mission told UN monitors 164 young children and elderly died from hunger and disease between January and September 2017.
Excerpts Food used as weapon of war in South Sudan, Reuters, Nov. 13, 2017
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, War and tagged Dinka versus Nuer South Sudan, food as weapon of war, human right abuses South Sudan, South Sudan civil war 2013-2016, United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) on November 15, 2017 by Stoa.
Leveling: How a 5,000 km/h Speed Feels on Earthlings
Hypersonic missiles [weapons faster than the speed of sound]— specifically hypersonic glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles — are a new class of threat because they are capable both of maneuvering and of flying faster than 5,000 kilometers per hour. These features enable such missiles to penetrate most missile defenses and to further compress the timelines for a response by a nation under attack.
Hypersonic missiles are being developed by the United States, Russia, and China. Their proliferation beyond these three could result in other powers setting their strategic forces on hair-trigger states of readiness. And such proliferation could enable other powers to more credibly threaten attacks on major powers. The diffusion of hypersonic technology is under way in Europe, Japan, Australia, and India — with other nations beginning to explore such technology. Proliferation could cross multiple borders if hypersonic technology is offered on world markets.
There is probably less than a decade available to substantially hinder the potential proliferation of hypersonic missiles and associated technologies. To this end, the report recommends that (1) the United States, Russia, and China should agree not to export complete hypersonic missile systems or their major components and (2) the broader international community should establish controls on a wider range of hypersonic missile hardware and technology.rs.
The unavoidable requirement is for the United States, Russia, and China to agree on a nonproliferation policy. France could play a key role in bringing other governments into agreement on a broader control policy.
The technical and economic barriers to developing hypersonic technology are great enough to add to the effectiveness of a nonproliferation policy.
A two-tiered approach to containing the spread of hypersonic systems and components appears to be the most promising.
First, we recommend a policy of export denial for complete hypersonic delivery vehicles and enough major subsystems to effectively provide access to complete hypersonic missiles.
Second, given dual-use concerns, we also recommend a policy of case-by-case export reviews for scramjets and other hypersonic engines and components, fuels for hypersonic use, sensors, navigation, and communication items for hypersonic flight, hypersonic flight controls, design tools and modeling for such uses, and ground simulation and testing for hypersonic systems.
The necessary first step is for the United States, Russia, and China to agree not to export complete hypersonic missiles or their major subsystems.
Excerpts from Richard H. Speier et al., Hindering the Spread of a New Class of Weapons, Rand Corporation, Sept. 2017
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, Markets, War and tagged export denial of hypersonic weapons, hypersonic weapons, restoration damaged ecosystems, X-51 WaveRider on November 8, 2017 by Stoa.
The Flourishing Jihadists and their Support Systems
U.S. special forces who accompanied Niger's military at a meeting of village leaders in Tongo Tongo on Oct. 4, 2017were working in the country's treacherous western borderlands, a region of shifting tribal allegiances, opaque motives and ethnic grudges going back decades, all feeding into a growing jihadi problem. Four Americans and five Nigerien troops died after leaving Tongo Tongo and being ambushed and heavily outgunned by fighters armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. The militants are believed to be from a Malian-led militia, Islamic State in the Greater Sahel, which declared allegiance to the overall militant organization in 2015.
One error appears to have been downplaying the danger. The Tillaberi and Tahoua regions in western Niger have been under a state of emergency since March 2017, as Niger has confronted the Islamic State offshoot, led by Malian extremist Abu Walid Sahrawi. U.S. forces have been present in the region to advise and assist Nigerien forces.
The United Nations has cataloged 46 attacks by extremists in western Niger since February 2016, including a February 2017 attack that killed 15 Nigerien soldiers and one a year ago that killed 22 Nigerien forces at a refugee camp.,,
Niger's interior minister, Mohamed Bazoum, said intelligence failures were to blame for the nine deaths. He said Islamic State in the Greater Sahel is more entrenched in local communities than are government forces.
Adam Sandor, an analyst on violent extremism in the Sahel at the University of Ottawa, said…."Essentially, the attackers are believed to have been scoping out and planning the attack and must have a knowledge of local communities in the area. Local communities most likely shared with them the information regarding the Nigerien Armed Forces operating with foreigners or military advisors in this space," he said. Leaders of Tongo Tongo village have been arrested, amid suspicions they were delaying the departure of the Nigerien and U.S. forces to pave the way for the attackers.
America has 6,000 troops in 50 countries across the continent, according to the Department of Defense, although many of the missions are charged with guarding U.S. embassies. The counter-terrorism deployments include an estimated 1,000 special operations forces, many posted in high-risk locations such as Somalia, Mali and Nigeria. An estimated 800 troops are in Niger. The U.S. also operates a string of drone bases throughout Africa, including one in Niger.
The Shabab is the deadliest of Africa's terrorist groups and is believed to be responsible for the country's worst terrorist attack: At least 358 people were killed Oct. 14, 2017 and 56 are still missing. The attack came weeks after a U.S. drone strike killed 10 civilians, including three children, in Bariire, west of Mogadishu. The U.S. has carried out at least 60 drone strikes in Somalia since January 2017, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, killing up to 510 people, including at least 38 civilians. The Shabab has killed 2,745 people in 2017, carrying out 987 of the continent's 1,827 incidents of violent extremism in the first nine months of the year, according to the analytical group African Center for Strategic Studies.
The Shabab also has a presence in Kenya, where it launches regular attacks, including the 2013 Westgate shopping mall massacre that killed at least 67 people, and the 2015 Garissa University College attack, where 147 people — mainly university students — were killed. The terrorist group is believed to have a presence across East Africa.
Boko Haram, operating in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and southeastern Niger, was responsible for 2,232 deaths in the first nine months of the year, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
In Mali, myriad armed extremists operate, including Islamic State in the Greater Sahel and its rival the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, formed in March 2017 from several Al Qaeda-linked extremist groups, including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. In 2012, Islamist militias took over half of the country before the French military drove them out of major cities.
The militias range freely across rural areas, crossing borders at will, launching operations in Mauritania, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, including attacks on hotels and resorts popular with foreigners. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, where myriad rebel groups vie for control over mineral resources, a new organization emerged recently declaring fealty to Islamic State. By comparison, Niger is one of the more stable countries in the region, making it the U.S. choice for a drone base being built outside Agadez, in central Niger, that will launch strikes across the region.
The Tongo Tongo attack has focused attention on Sahel leader Sahrawi…. He has a history of swapping sides and financing his operations through kidnappings. He has recruited fighters from among the Fulani nomads in western Niger, exploiting ethnic rivalries with the Daoussahak people in the region, some of whom have formed a militia called the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. Both Niger and France have used the group as a proxy force to fight Islamic State in the Great Sahel, deepening ethnic animosities.
Excerpts from After Niger attack, a look at clandestine jihadis posing a growing danger to U.S. forces in Africa, L.A. Times, Oct. 21, 2017
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, corruption/Illegal markets, covert action, Human Rights, War and tagged Abu Walid Sahrawi, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al-Shabab, armed drones, Boko Haram, drone base Agadez Niger, drone base Niger, drone war against al-Shabab, drones Niger, Islamic State, Islamic State in the Greater Sahel on October 23, 2017 by Stoa.
Trapped to Death
By the start of 2017 the Taliban was pushing hard to take Sangin city's district centre, Afghanistan, a fortified compound which housed the local security and administrative officials, just a few miles from Hamid Gul's family home. The compound was the only thing stopping the Taliban from claiming the whole district as their own. The US, which had lost at least 70 of its own troops keeping Sangin out of insurgent hands over the years, scrambled to respond with scores of airstrikes. Hamid was convinced that his family were still safer behind Taliban lines than in Laskhar Gah, one of the Taliban's prime targets. But on the morning of February 10 2017, he got an unexpected phone call from a neighbour in Sangin: the family's house had been flattened. In that one night Hamid Gul lost his 50 year-old mother, Bibi Bakhtawara, six brothers and a sister. All seven children were under 16 years of age. Bibi Rahmania, his niece, also died. She was just two years old.
By the end of those three days, five women and 19 children were dead
Hamid was not the only person given devastating news on that day. On the same night, a few hours later, a second civilian house, just a few miles away from his own, was also hit. The following night a third one was struck.
To this day, there is no consensus about what happened to those three houses and why. What is clear, however, is that by the end of those three days in early February five women and 19 children were dead, among a full toll of 26 civilians, a Bureau investigation has established.
Three local officials interviewed by Bureau reporters on the ground claimed US airstrikes had destroyed the houses and killed their inhabitants. The United Nations (UN) said the same, in its biannual accounting of Afghan civilians killed in the war, released in July 2017, adding that there appeared to have been no fighting in the area at the time, meaning the attacks may have been pre-planned.
A spokesperson for Resolute Support, the US-led Nato mission in Afghanistan, told the Bureau that after four investigations the organisation could not confirm or deny responsibility for killing the civilians, though he pushed back strongly against the UN's claims that there was no fighting in the villages at the time. Resolute Support has officially concluded the case as "disputed", one of four categories for recording allegations of civilian casualties. It was used in this case because Resolute Support cannot decide if insurgents or the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) were responsible for the casualties, the spokesperson told the Bureau.
The fact that no-one has taken responsibility for the deaths of 24 women and children offers an insight into the lack of accountability of America's longest-running conflict, which it now fights largely from the air under opaque rules of engagement against 20-odd armed groups.
Excerpts from Caught in the crossfire
Civilians are bearing the brunt of conflict in Afghanistan, Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Sept. 30, 2017
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, Human Rights, War and tagged Afghanistan civilian casualties, armed drones, civilian casualties, drones CIA, JSOC drone program, NATO war violations, Resolute Support US-NATO, U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) on October 4, 2017 by Stoa.
The Deadly Combination
Two North Korean shipments to a Syrian government agency responsible for the country's chemical weapons program were intercepted in mid-2017 according to a confidential United Nations report on North Korea sanctions violations. The report by a panel of independent U.N. experts, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council in August 2017 and seen by Reuters gave no details on when or where the interdictions occurred or what the shipments contained. "The panel is investigating reported prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation between Syria and the DPRK (North Korea)," the experts wrote in the 37-page report.
"Two member states interdicted shipments destined for Syria. Another Member state informed the panel that it had reasons to believe that the goods were part of a KOMID contract with Syria," according to the report.
KOMID is the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation. It was blacklisted by the Security Council in 2009 and described as Pyongyang's key arms dealer and exporter of equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. In March 2016 the council also blacklisted two KOMID representatives in Syria. "The consignees were Syrian entities designated by the European Union and the United States as front companies for Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), a Syrian entity identified by the Panel as cooperating with KOMID in previous prohibited item transfers," the U.N. experts wrote. SSRC has overseen the country's chemical weapons program since the 1970s.
The U.N. experts said activities between Syria and North Korea they were investigating included cooperation on Syrian Scud missile programs and maintenance and repair of Syrian surface-to-air missiles air defense systems….The experts said they were also investigating the use of the VX nerve agent in Malaysia to kill the estranged half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in February.
North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs…Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States. However, diplomats and weapons inspectors suspect Syria may have secretly maintained or developed a new chemical weapons capability.
During the country's more than six-year long civil war the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has said the banned nerve agent sarin has been used at least twice, while the use of chlorine as a weapon has been widespread. The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons.
On September 7, Israel targeted and heavily damaged a SSRC weapons factory in Masyaf Syria.
Excerpts from Michelle Nichols North Korea shipments to Syria chemical arms agency intercepted: U.N. report, Reuters, Aug. 21, 2017
Excerpts from Israel Hits Syrian Site Said to be Linked to Nuclear Weapons, Reuters, Sept. 7, 2017
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, nuclear weapons, War and tagged Iran, Israel and Syria, KOMID, Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation, North Korea, Syria, Syria and North Korea collaboration on September 18, 2017 by Stoa.
Mosaic Warfare: how to fight like a network
DARPA's Strategic Technology Office (STO) on August 4, 2017 unveiled its updated approach to winning or deterring future conflicts. The foundation of STO's new strategy rests on the recognition that traditional U.S. asymmetric technology advantage—such as highly advanced satellites, stealth aircraft, or precision munitions—today offer a reduced strategic value because of growing global access to comparable high-tech systems and components, many of which are now commercially available. Additionally, the high cost and sometimes decades-long development timelines for new military systems can't compete with the fast refresh rate of electronics component technology on the commercial market, which can make new military systems obsolete before they're delivered.
STO's updated strategy seeks a new asymmetric advantage—one that imposes complexity on adversaries by harnessing the power of dynamic, coordinated, and highly autonomous composable systems.
"We've developed a technology-based vision that would enable highly complex, strategic moves by composing multiple contributing systems to enable what might be thought of as 'mosaic warfare,' in which individual components can respond to needs in real time to create desired outcomes," said Tom Burns, director of STO. "The goal is to fight as a network to create a chain of effects—or, more accurately because these effects are not linear, 'effects webs'—to deter and defeat adversaries across multiple scales of conflict intensity. This could be anything from conventional force-on-force battles to more nebulous 'Gray Zone' conflicts, which don't reach the threshold of traditional military engagements but can be equally disruptive and subversive."
U.S. military power has traditionally relied upon monolithic military systems where one type of aircraft, for example, is designed to provide a single end-to-end capability tailored to a very specific warfighting context—and be a significant loss if shot down. In contrast, the composable effects webs concept seeks a mosaic-like flexibility in designing effects for any threat scenario. By using less expensive systems brought together on demand as the conflict unfolds, these effects webs would enable diverse, agile applications—from a kinetic engagement in a remote desert setting, to multiple small strike teams operating in a bustling megacity, or an information operation to counter an adversary spreading false information in a population threatening friendly forces and strategic objectives. Mosiacs can rapidly be tailored to accommodate available resources, adapt to dynamic threats, and be resilient to losses and attrition.
This means that even if an adversary can neutralize a number of pieces of the mosaic, the collective can instantly respond as needed to still achieve the desired, overall effect."…The mosaic strategy is also anticipated to change the way the military thinks about designing and buying future systems. Instead of spending years or even decades building exquisite, monolithic systems to rigid requirements, future acquisition programs would be able to buy mosaic "tiles" at a rapid, continuous pace. The true power of the new capabilities will come from the composite mosaic effects.
The approach will draw in part on a number of existing DARPA programs that are developing enabling technologies to achieve the challenging mosaic warfare architecture, including: The Complex Adaptive System Composition And Design Environment (CASCADE) program is addressing composition of existing and new systems; the System of Systems Integration Technology and Experimentation (SoSITE) program is focused on integrating the various systems to work together; Distributed Battle Management (DBM) and Resilient Synchronized Planning and Assessment for the Contested Environment (RSPACE) are addressing battle management command and control; and Communications in Contested Environments (C2E) and Dynamic Network Adaptation for Mission Optimization (DyNAMO) are focused on seamless, adaptable communications and networking.
Excerpts from Strategic Technology Office Outlines Vision for "Mosaic Warfare", DARPA Press Release, Aug. 4, 2017
This entry was posted in civilian casualties, covert action, cyberwar, Markets, War and tagged air warfare systems, asymmetric technology advantage in warfare, asymmetric warfare, covert action, covert warfare, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),