09 Terrorism – Page 85 – Public Intelligence Blog

(From EnoughProject.org)
The Lord’s Resistance Army has depopulated a remote corner of northeastern Congo, killing and abducting hundreds of civilians, and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes. In a new report, “‘This is our land now:’ Lord’s Resistance Army attacks in Bas Uele, northeastern Congo,” Enough Project Field Researcher Ledio Cakaj documents 51 attacks by the LRA in Bas Uele, Congo, resulting in at least 105 deaths and 570 abductions during the last 15 months.

“The LRA rampage in Bas Uele territory is brutal but strategic,” notes Cakaj, “LRA fighters have used this region as a base and transit point to the Central African Republic and beyond. The threat to civilians is increasing, since there is no meaningful military force to challenge the LRA in this area. The Congolese army remains a threat to its own population, and the United Nations is drawing down its peacekeepers in this region.”

After signing into U.S. law the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act on May 24, 2010, the Obama administration is developing a comprehensive strategy to deal with the LRA. The report argues that any viable strategy needs to take into account the importance of Bas Uele to the LRA, in order to better protect civilians and finally to end the LRA’s escalating threat across a vast region of central Africa.

2010/08/032010/08/03

Secrecy News: Afghanistan Deaths, CRS Reports, Weaknesses in Industrial Cyber Sec, Too Many Secrets, Math Discovery

04 Inter-State Conflict, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Computer/online security

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2010, Issue No. 62
August 2, 2010

Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

**      AFGHANISTAN CASUALTIES, AND MORE FROM CRS
**      WEAKNESSES IN INDUSTRIAL CYBER SECURITY DESCRIBED
**      TOO MANY SECRETS, THE GREATEST MATH DISCOVERY, AND MORE

AFGHANISTAN CASUALTIES, AND MORE FROM CRS

Sixty-six American troops died in Afghanistan in July, making it the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the Afghanistan War thus far, the Washington Post and others reported.

Casualties of the Afghanistan War have recently been tabulated by the Congressional Research Service, including statistics on American forces, of whom around 1100 have been killed, as well as allied forces, and Afghan civilians. Although the three week old CRS report does not include the very latest figures, it provides links to official and unofficial sources of casualty information that are regularly updated. See “Afghanistan Casualties: Military Forces and Civilians,” July 12, 2010.

A number of other noteworthy new CRS reports that have not been made readily available to the public were obtained by Secrecy News, including these (all pdf):

Continue reading “Secrecy News: Afghanistan Deaths, CRS Reports, Weaknesses in Industrial Cyber Sec, Too Many Secrets, Math Discovery”

2010/08/012010/08/01

CrisisGroup’s CrisisWatch Monthly Report N°84, 1 Aug 2010

04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, CrisisWatch reports

CrisisWatch N°84

Two actual or potential conflict situations around the world deteriorated and one improved in July 2010, according to the new issue of the International Crisis Group’s monthly bulletin CrisisWatch released today.

July 2010 TRENDS

Deteriorated Situations
Rwanda, Somalia

Improved Situations
Somaliland

Continue reading “CrisisGroup’s CrisisWatch Monthly Report N°84, 1 Aug 2010”

2010/07/30

US, NATO Allies Prepare New Invasion Of Somalia

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Immigration, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Military

The 15th biennial African Union summit in Kampala, Uganda ended on July 27 with mixed results regarding support for U.S. and Western European plans to escalate foreign military intervention in nearby Somalia.

The 35 heads of state present at the three-day meeting were reported to have authorized the deployment of 2,000 more African troops to back up the beleaguered Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu and to bring the full complement of forces doing so to 8,000, but the new contingent will probably consist solely of troops from Uganda and Burundi, which supply the approximately 6,000 already serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Reports of another 2,000 reinforcements from Djibouti and Guinea are problematic and their deployment remains to be seen, not that pressure will not be exerted on those two nations and others from outside the continent.

AMISOM is the successor to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Peace Support Mission in Somalia (IGASOM) set up in 2005 by the six-member group which includes Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda and which also was to have provided 8,000 troops for deployment to Somalia. The 53 members of the African Union except for Uganda and Burundi have been loath to commit military units to intervene in fighting in Somalia, whether against the Islamic Courts Union five years ago or against al-Shabaab insurgents currently.

In late 2006 U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa to plan the earlier IGASOM operation and in January of 2007 Uganda pledged its first troops which, along with those included in a reported offer by Nigeria, were to total 8,000.

Three and a half years later, there are only 6,000 foreign troops in Somalia (now under AMISOM, the only difference being the acronym now employed) and all of those from Uganda and Burundi, both nations U.S. military clients and surrogates.

The African Union (AU) initially approved AMISOM on January 19, 2007 and granted it a six-month mandate. In July of 2010 the real prime movers behind the mission, the U.S. and its NATO allies in the European Union, are pushing for an escalation of armed intervention in Somalia with more Western-trained Ugandan troops conducting open combat operations: Changing the mandate from, to use the terms employed to mask military aggression, peacekeeping to peace enforcement. Continue reading “US, NATO Allies Prepare New Invasion Of Somalia”

2010/07/302010/08/16

Journal: Wikileaks Afghan Collection Assessed

02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Corruption, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Media, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda

editor spinney time — Chuck Spinney Recommends

Below is a good summary of the wikileaks database. It is also a good example of how the secretive conspiratorial mind, trained in the wilderness of mirrors that is the US intelligence establishment, conjures motivations out of the ether. The author builds a an inferential case to insinuate the massive leak of intelligence data via the wikileaks website was an orchestrated info-operation aimed at influencing the American polity by building the case for leaving Afghanistan. Left unsaid, but dangling tantalizingly in the last two paragraphs, is a subtle (and unsubstantiated) suggestion that this leak came from very high levels, perhaps the highest level, of the Obama Administration. Too clever by a half?????? Chuck

Thousands of reasons to leave

By George Friedman, Asia Times, 29 July 2010

On Sunday, The New York Times and two other newspapers published summaries and excerpts of tens of thousands of documents leaked to a website known as WikiLeaks. The documents comprise a vast array of material concerning the war in Afghanistan. They range from tactical reports from small unit operations to broader strategic analyses of politico-military relations between the United States and Pakistan. It appears to be an extraordinary collection.

Tactical intelligence on firefights is intermingled with reports on confrontations between senior US and Pakistani officials in which lists of Pakistani operatives in Afghanistan are handed over to the Pakistanis. Reports on the use of surface-to-air missiles by militants in Afghanistan are intermingled with reports on the activities of former Pakistani intelligence chief Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, who reportedly continues to liaise with the Afghan Taliban in an informal capacity.

FULL APPRAISAL ONLINE

2010/07/192010/07/19

Secrecy News: Costs of Major US Wars, Contractors in Iraq & AF, Drones & Homeland Sec

04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Corporations, Government, Intelligence (government), Military, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, True Cost

COSTS OF MAJOR U.S. WARS COMPARED

More than a trillion dollars has been appropriated since September 11, 2001 for U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. This makes the “war on terrorism” the most costly of any military engagement in U.S. history in absolute terms or, if correcting for inflation, the second most expensive U.S. military action after World War II.

A newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service estimated the financial costs of major U.S. wars from the American Revolution ($2.4 billion in FY 2011 dollars) to World War I ($334 billion) to World War II ($4.1 trillion) to the second Iraq war ($784 billion) and the war in Afghanistan ($321 billion). CRS provided its estimates in current year dollars (i.e. the year they were spent) and in constant year dollars (adjusted for inflation), and as a percentage of gross domestic product. Many caveats apply to these figures, which are spelled out in the CRS report.

In constant dollars, World War II is still the most expensive of all U.S. wars, having consumed a massive 35.8% of GDP at its height and having cost $4.1 trillion in FY2011 dollars. See “Costs of Major U.S. Wars,” June 29, 2010.

MILITARY CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

The Department of Defense has more contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan than it has uniformed military personnel, another newly updated report from the Congressional Research Service reminds us.

“The Department of Defense increasingly relies upon contractors to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has resulted in a DOD workforce that has 19% more contractor personnel (207,600) than uniformed personnel (175,000),” said the CRS report — which forms a timely counterpoint to this week's Washington Post “Top Secret America” series on the tremendous expansion of the intelligence bureaucracy, including the increased and often unchecked reliance on contractors.

The explosive growth in reliance on contractors naturally entails new difficulties in management and oversight. “Some analysts believe that poor contract management has also played a role in abuses and crimes committed by certain contractors against local nationals, which may have undermined U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the CRS said. See “Department of Defense Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan: Background and Analysis,” July 2, 2010.

And see, relatedly, “U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress,” July 16, 2010.

UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEMS AND HOMELAND SECURITY

The potential benefits and limitations of using unmanned aerial vehicles for homeland security applications were considered by the Congressional Research Service in yet another updated report. See “Homeland Security: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Border Surveillance,” July 8, 2010.

The same set of issues was examined in a newly published master's thesis on “Integrating Department of Defense Unmanned Aerial Systems into the National Airspace Structure” by Major Scott W. Walker.

Another new master's thesis looked at the comparatively high accident rate of unmanned systems and their susceptibility to attack or disruption. See “The Vulnerabilities of Unmanned Aircraft System Common Data Links to Electronic Attack” by Major Jaysen A. Yochim.

The “secret history” of unmanned aircraft was recounted in an informative new study published by the Air Force Association. See “Air Force UAVs: The Secret History” by Thomas P. Ehrhard, July 2010.
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists.

: Enter the Secrecy News blog & email subscription

2010/07/12

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Denies Access to WTC Collapse Data

09 Justice, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Civil Society, Government, Open Government, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

FINDING REGARDING PUBLIC SAFETY INFORMATION
Pursuant to Section 7(d) of the National Construction Safety Team Act, I hereby find that the disclosure of the information described below, received by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”), in connection with its investigation of the technical causes of the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers and World Trade Center Building 7 on September 11,2001, might jeopardize public safety. Therefore, NIST shall not release the following information:

1. All input and results files of the ANSYS 16-story collapse initiation model with detailed connection models that were used to analyze the structural response to thermal loads, break element source code, ANSYS script files for the break elements, custom executable ANSYS file, and all Excel spreadsheets and other supporting calculations used to develop floor connection failure modes and capacities.
2. All input files with connection material properties and all results files of the LS-DYNA 47-story global collapse model that were used to simulate sequential structural failures leading to collapse, and all Excel spreadsheets and other supporting calculations used to develop floor connection failure modes and capacities.
~
Patrick Gallagher Director National Institute of Standards and Technology
Dated: JUL 09 2009

(From http://cryptome.org/nist070709.pdf)

Cryptome.org claims that the above letter pertains to the below photos
+ Batch of 52 photos in zip file (37 MB download)

Keywords: Opendata, opengov, secrecy

Category: 09 Terrorism

“Lord’s Resistance Army” Attacks in Bas Uele, Northeastern Congo