Jim Comey Wants to Generalize FBI’s Intelligence Collection

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In the 26th paragraph of a 32-paragraph article reporting on how FBI will remain terror terror terror under Jim Comey’s watch (albeit, potentially, with a more particularized focus, which would be welcome), this detail appears:

Mr. Comey said he also wanted to apply the lessons learned in fighting terrorism to fighting other crimes. If Congress approves, he plans to move the bureau’s head of intelligence out of the national security division and create a new intelligence branch that will amass information on crimes like fraud in an effort to more quickly identify trends and perpetrators.

I look forward to learning more about this proposal (and we shall see whether Congress permits Comey to make this move, though he is still Congress’ darling). Plus, it’s unclear whether “fraud” means the small-time fraud propagated by local businessmen or whether it’s the kind Jamie Dimon has gotten rich off of.

Still, it’s a much needed idea. While it poses the risk of expanding the use of intrusive intelligence tools, it also might lead us to establishing a better standard for the use of such intelligence.

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Keith Alexander Declares Failure in War on Terror, as He Earlier Declared Failure in Cyberdefense

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The New Yorker has a weird interview with Keith Alexander. The weirdness stems from Alexander’s wandering answers, which may, in turn, stem from the fact that the interview was not done by an NSA beat reporter. Such interviews seem to flummox NSA insiders.

But beyond all the rambling about Jeopardy and “free vowels” and disingenuous claims (and silences) about past terrorist events, ultimately Keith Alexander wants us to know that we are at greater risk as he steps down after more than 8 years of protecting us.

His logic for that is not that terrorists struck the Boston Marathon last year, in spite of NSA apparently collecting on them but not reviewing the collection — he doesn’t even mention that.

Rather, it’s that the number of terrorist attacks are going up globally. The US has thus far avoided such attacks (ignoring hate crimes and the Marathon attack), which he points to as proof our spying is working. But he also points to it as proof that we’re due.

There are people on one side saying that these N.S.A. programs could have stopped these plots. And then there are people who dispute that.

We know we didn’t stop 9/11. People were trying, but they didn’t have the tools. This tool, we believed, would help them. Let’s look at what’s happening right now. You ought to get this from the START Program at the University of Maryland. They have the statistics on terrorist attacks. 2012 and 2013. The number of terrorist attacks in 2012—do you know how many there were globally?

How many?

Six thousand seven hundred and seventy-one. Over ten thousand people killed. In 2013, it would grow to over ten thousand terrorist attacks and over twenty thousand people killed. Now, how did we do in the United States and Europe? How do you feel here? Safe, right? I feel pretty safe.

[snip]

So think about how secure our nation has been since 9/11. We take great pride in it. It’s not because of me. It’s because of those people who are working, not just at N.S.A. but in the rest of the intelligence community, the military, and law enforcement, all to keep this country safe. But they have to have tools. With the number of attacks that are coming, the probability, it’s growing—

I’m sorry, could you say that once more?

The probability of an attack getting through to the United States, just based on the sheer numbers, from 2012 to 2013, that I gave you—look at the statistics. If you go from just eleven thousand to twenty thousand, what does that tell you? That’s more. That’s fair, right?

I don’t know. I think it depends what the twenty thousand—

—deaths. People killed. From terrorist attacks. These aren’t my stats. The University of Maryland does it for the State Department.

I’ll look at them. I will. So you’re saying that the probability of an attack is growing.

The probability is growing. What I saw at N.S.A. is that there is a lot more coming our way. Just as someone is revealing all the tools and the capabilities we have. What that tells me is we’re at greater risk. I can’t measure it. You can’t say, Well, is that enough to get through? I don’t know. It means that the intel community, the military community, and law enforcement are going to work harder.

Since Alexander invited us, let’s see what the START data say, shall we? Here’s what they tell us:

According to the annex, the 10 countries that experienced the most terrorist attacks in 2013 are the same as those that experience the most terrorist attacks in 2012.

Although terrorist attacks occurred in 93 different countries, they were heavily concentrated geographically. More than half of all attacks (57%), fatalities (66%), and injuries (73%) occurred in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. By wide margin, the highest number of fatalities (6,378), attacks (2,495) and injuries (14,956) took place in Iraq. The average lethality of attacks in Iraq was 40 percent higher than the global average and 33 percent higher than the 2012 average in Iraq.

The US hasn’t been attacked. But attacks are mushrooming in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. These not only happen to be places where we’ve been fighting the war on terror the longest and most directly, places where Alexander has been at the forefront of the fight, even before he took over at NSA. But they also happen to be those places overseas that the NSA uses to legitimize their global reach.

Yet 13 or 11 years of concentrated spying — of collect it all — in those places has not eliminated terrorism. On the contrary, terrorism is now getting worse.

And now they serve as both the proof that spying is working and that spying is more necessary than ever.

Rather than evidence that the War on Terror is failing.

We shouldn’t be surprised that we’re losing a war fighting which Alexander was one of the longest tenured generals (though I don’t think he bears primary responsibility for the policy decisions that have led to this state). After all, last year, Alexander said that also under his watch, we had been plundered like a colony via cyberattacks. He seems to think he lost both the war on terror and on cyberattacks.

Which, if you’re invested in Wall Street, ought to alarm you. Because that’s where Keith Alexander is headed to wage war next.

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As Taliban Launch Offensive in Afghanistan, More Data Pierce Narrative of Weakened Insurgency

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As noted last week, the Afghan Taliban brazenly stated the day and hour at which their 2014 offensive would launch while also characterizing the targets they would attack. It appears that the attacks started pretty much at the appointed hour this morning, with rocket attacks aimed at the airport in Kabul and Bagram Air Base. There also was an attack on a government building in Nangahar. The rocket attacks appear to have done little or no damage, while there were at least four deaths in the attack on the building.

Data continue to accumulate that pierce the narrative that the US military has tried to create around a “weakened” Taliban insurgency. Khaama Press reports that the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan released a report stating that at least 545 children were killed in Afghanistan in 2013. The same article notes that the Independent Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan has counted at least 284 children have been killed so far this year, suggesting that 2014 will be even worse for child deaths. A report from the International Crisis Group is also being released today, and in it we see that violence in Afghanistan is indeed continuing to rise. From the Wall Street Journal:

Violence levels across Afghanistan are steadily rising as U.S.-led troops return home, an indication that the Taliban remain determined to fight for power, according to a report by the International Crisis Group set for release on Monday.

An analysis by the ICG, an independent conflict-resolution organization, estimates that the number of insurgent attacks in Afghanistan increased 15-20% in 2013 from a year earlier, the first time such figures will be released publicly. It added that violence continued to escalate in the first months of 2014.

Despite the fact that the International Crisis Group describes itself as an “independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict”, its leaders published an op-ed in today’s Globe and Mail aimed at drumming up support for Afghanistan’s armed forces. Even the title of the piece is aimed at the military’s battle for hearts and minds: “Reduced to eating grass, Afghanistan’s forces are in dire need of our help”, and the text seems just as slanted toward the West maintaining a presence in Afghanistan:

Afghan forces are holding the district by themselves, so far, but Taliban roadblocks are causing food shortages. Ghorak’s defenders recently started to eat boiled grass.

It’s the same story in many other rural areas: Afghan police and soldiers are keeping the insurgency at bay, but they need more support from the international community.

/snip/

Current plans for international support of the ANSF are insufficient. Donors must go beyond the annual commitment of $3.6-billion (U.S.) made at the Chicago 2012 summit and provide funding for maintenance of an ANSF personnel roster approximately equal to its current size, until stability improves in Afghanistan.

The Afghan government also needs international assistance with logistics, air support, intelligence and other technical aspects of security operations sometimes known as “enablers.” There is, for example, a pressing need for more helicopters and armoured vehicles. Currently, Afghan police and soldiers, far from urban centres, die of minor injuries while they wait for scarce helicopters or armoured convoys to transfer them to medical facilities.

As for the bullshit claim to need even more armored vehicles, read this from last August. But again, this whole plea by the International Crisis Group is just the same line we have gotten from the military essentially from the start of the Afghan quagmire. The narrative of a weakened Taliban and an increasingly capable Afghan defense force is always there, and yet the entire operation always teeters on the edge of collapse if we don’t ramp up our support. Completely missing is an understanding that the Taliban’s targets are centered around the presence of US troops and those who collaborate with them. When US troops are completely gone, the main reason for fighting is also gone.

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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Search Motion: the Reddish-Brown Powder and the Pizza Papers

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In addition to his motion challenging his confession, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev also submitted at least one more motion to suppress on Wednesday (there’s a third motion to suppress the search of his laptop; that appears to be sealed document 284 in the docket), challenging the scope of and in one case the legality of the searches done on the Tsarnaev’s residences.

I’ll leave it to the lawyers to argue about the merits of the challenge. I’m primarily interested in what they show about the development of the investigation. They appear to show an evolution in FBI’s understanding of where and whether the explosives used in the attack were made.

The motion describes the following searches of the two residences associated with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev:

April 15, 2013: The attack

April 19, 2013: After IDing Tamerlan via fingerprints, FBI obtained a warrant for 410 Norfolk Street in Cambridge; that search lasted from 1 AM on April 20 until 1PM on April 20; this warrant included “Property, records, or other information related to the ordering, purchasing, manufacturing, storage, and transportation of firearms;”

Overnight April 20 to 21: FBI’s High Value Interrogation Team conducts first interrogation of Tsarnaev

3AM to 9AM April 22: FBI conducts search of Tsarnaev’s UMASS dorm room based on warrant issued at midnight that day

May 5: FBI conducts a second search on 410 Norfolk apartment, based off warrant issued on May 3; this search appears based on evidence obtained from surveillance video of people — including potentially a female — purchasing pressure cookers at Macys, but also included further search for low-explosive powder residue; no residue was found

June 27: On invitation from UMASS cops, FBI observes Dzhokhar’s dorm room again; UMASS cops obtain sample of reddish-brown powder; this is the search Dzhokhar claims was illegal

July 26: FBI searches Dzhokhar’s dorm room based on warrant issued July 24, claiming to have observed reddish-brown powder on previous April 21 warranted search; this warrant includes explosives and BBs

It appears that the FBI did initial broad-brush searches on both Norfolk and the dorm room after they caught the brothers (though I am intrigued that it took FBI 2 days to get to the dorm room, which is significant given issues of who tried to tamper evidence there). Then on May 5, FBI went back Norfolk Street to try to tie the purchase of pressure cookers to the Tsarnaevs, and obtain more evidence that the pressure cooker bombs were made at the Cambridge apartment. They didn’t, apparently, find any residue to support the latter claim.

Then, it appears UMASS invited the FBI into the dorm room for one more looksie before they crated up Dzhokhar’s stuff on June 27. Presumably acting on FBI’s instructions, UMASS cops swabbed the reddish-brown powder, and presumably sent it out for testing. Again presumably, once that test came back, the FBI invented the story that they had observed the reddish-brown powder on their original search so as to legally obtain a sample of it.

At least, that’s the scenario laid out in Dzhokhar’s challenge to its collection.

The application for the second search warrant for Mr. Tsarnaev’s dorm room and for his personal property, taken from his dorm room, recites facts gleaned from the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings, a search of Mr. Tsarnaev’s laptop computer (the subject of a separate motion to suppress), another search of material found in a backpack located in a landfill, and the observations made by FBI agents during the June 27 warrantless entry . Some of this information was available well before the June 27 entry, yet the FBI had not sought a second warrant.

It appears that the warrant was aimed in large part at seizing the “reddish-brown powder” observed on the window sill of the room. The warrant application’s claim that this was seen during the April search by agents, who inexplicably failed to seize it, strains credulity. Reports regarding the April 21 search do not mention the powder. Photographs taken of the pyrotechnic found on the window sill do not show it. And the Evidence Recovery Team casebook twice states that the room was reviewed by a chemist “for potential areas for swabbing. None were located.”

As a reminder, two of Dzhokhar’s buddies, Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazkayakov, along with an unnamed co-conspirator allegedly removed the laptop and other materials from the dorm room on April 18; it took the FBI 6 days of searching a landfill to find those things on April 25. So whatever was in them (including the computer the search of which Dzhokhar is also challenging) was not available before the April 21 search.

The FBI looksie visit on June 27 was likely nothing more than UMASS trying to give the FBI one more pass at the room before they cleared it; while they did search for clothes (which is how they were trying to tie the pressure cooker purchase in), it’s not clear they were in search of anything in particular. (Though on the subsequent search they may have been looking for DNA of still unidentified people.)

But that reddish-brown powder seems to have sparked their interest.

I raise all this, in part, because of a recent report that the pressure cooker bombs couldn’t have been based solely on the Inspire magazine instructions (and I had heard similar things almost immediately after the bombing).

ABC News has learned that many within the FBI, law enforcement and counter-terrorism strongly disagree they could have become good enough to make the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from online how-to’s and suspect an expert taught or instructed Tamerlan on the craft of bombmaking while he was overseas in 2012.

[snip]

But an analysis of the bombs done by FBI technicians at the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC) in Quantico, Virginia in late April 2013 found that the bombs in Boston had a much more sophisticated design that that in [Inspire], including differences in the initiators, power source and switch/trigger, which utilized a toy car remote control. Inspire never contained instructions for that type of switch/trigger used to remotely set off the IEDs but had directions for a different type using a motorcycle remote starter.

“While the RC concept is similar, TEDAC assesses INSPIRE  would not provide an individual with the appropriate details to translate these instructions for use with RC toy car components. Such construction would likely require previous knowledge of, or additional research into, RC toy car circuitry,” a TEDAC analysis document said.

That is, the understanding they had of how and where the bombs were made — based in part on Dzhokhar’s confession — seems to have evolved after the initial searches. The FBI appears not to have found evidence backing their public claims that the bombs were made in Cambridge. And now we find something — which admittedly could just as easily be pot residue as bomb residue — that focuses on the explosives found in the dorm room.

One more detail, that I only raise because of my continued obsession with the role of Gerry’s Italian Kitchen in this attack. The suppression motion also notes that the April searches included evidence relating to pizza.

Among the items seized from the Norfolk Street apartment was a paystub for Tamerlan from a 2010 job at a pizza restaurant. Agents seized a pizza box from Mr. Tsarnaev’s dorm room.

These were from the initial April searches. But particularly the seizure of Tamerlan’s paystub suggest they were interested in his ties to pizza joints in the area.

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After Delaying Runoff, Afghan Taliban Announce Start Date of Fighting Season, Targets

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One of the most enduring formulas throughout the nearly 13 year US quagmire in Afghanistan has been the persistent claims by our military and their fans that we are making tremendous progress and that the Taliban has been weakened significantly. That formula held true in spectacular fashion for the Afghan election, with broad instant claims of how successful and peaceful voting was. But alas, once real information started coming out, it turns out that election day was in fact extremely violent. Even less noticed is that the facilities of the Independent Election Commission have been attacked since the day of the vote and now it appears that there will be a delay in the runoff election because of that attack. As if that blow is not enough, the “weakened” Afghan Taliban has now announced the date for the start of their spring offensive and have provided a long list of the types of targets they will attack.

Here is ISAF patting itself on the back on the day of the elections because those ANSF troops they trained did so well:

The International Security Assistance Force congratulates the people of Afghanistan on today’s historic election. Today’s success clearly demonstrates that the Afghan people have chosen their future of progress and opportunity.

As the world watched, Afghan National Security Forces provided the opportunity for the Afghan people to choose their new President, securing over 6,200 polling centers across the country. Soldiers and policemen confidently patrolled the cities and countryside to protect innocent civilians and prevent insurgents from disrupting today’s elections. Afghan voters displayed confidence in their army and police, turning out in unprecedented numbers to cast their ballot for the future of Afghanistan.

“The people of Afghanistan can be proud of their security forces,” said General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., ISAF commander. “For months, they’ve conducted planning and security operations to ensure that the conditions were set for inclusive elections. What we saw today as a result of that effort was extraordinary. In addition to their physical performance, what equally impresses me is the sense of responsibility and determination they had in ensuring the Afghan people had a secure environment in which to vote and determine their own future.”

Ah, but that carefully crafted narrative of peaceful elections was bullshit that took several days for the media to pierce. Ten days after the election, the Washington Post had this to say:

But on voting day, the country seemed unusually calm, prompting Afghan politicians to speculate that the Taliban had intentionally allowed the election to proceed.

“I don’t think the other side put too much pressure,” said Hedayat Amin Arsala, a presidential candidate. “They even prevented some people from attacking.”

The statistics tell another story. Data released Monday by the U.S. military in Kabul show that April 5 was, in fact, an unusually violent day, spiking far above the norm, although falling 36 percent short of the peak number of attacks during the 2009 election, one of the bloodiest days of the war.

Of the 286 insurgent attacks during this election, the vast majority (226) occurred in eastern Afghanistan, followed by 21 in the Kandahar area of southern Afghanistan, 17 in the west, 14 in the north, seven in the Helmand region and just one in Kabul.

It now turns out that the fallout from Taliban attacks after the election could be huge, with the runoff possibly delayed:

Independent Election Commission (IEC) Chairman Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani admitted on Wednesday that the runoff round expected between Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai could face delays.

A runoff is required by Afghan law if no presidential candidate gets over 50 percent of votes in the first round. As of now, no one has passed that threshold. Although the runoff round was originally scheduled for May 28, election officials have said a number of setbacks have made it more likely that the round will be delayed.

Mr. Nuristani cited the Taliban’s attack on the IEC’s headquarters in Kabul as the cause of the delay.

“The election law says that a run-off must be held two weeks after the final results’ announcement, but the Taliban launched a rocket attack, and as a result of the attack we lost some of our critical materials, therefore, we will not be able to hold a run-off after two weeks,” he explained.

So the Taliban, despite the early claims of a hugely successful election, has now managed to get a crucial delay in the runoff election. Remember that Hamid Karzai has refused to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement that would allow US troops to stay in Afghanistan after the end of this year. Although both Abdullah and Ghani have said that they would sign the agreement, a delay in the winner taking office increases the odds that the US will simply withdraw completely if they feel there isn’t sufficient time to plan for the number of troops to leave behind.

And the Taliban are pressing ahead, announcing the start of their spring offensive: Read more →

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CIA, Pakistan Taliban Bring Fighters to Syria…and a Global Polio Emergency

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Recall that last fall, Barack Obama spent some time altering the public record on when CIA-trained death squads first entered Syria to move the date from just before the Ghouta sarin attack to just after (while also trying to shrink the size of those first groups). But the US was a month behind Pakistan’s Taliban, who also sent fighters to Syria, ostensibly on the same side as us this time, to fight pro-Assad forces. But while these efforts on the same side in Syria are having little success as Assad remains in power and might even be gaining the upper hand, the work of the CIA and Taliban on opposite sides in Pakistan has produced a devastating result, with the World Health Organization announcing yesterday that it has declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern over the spread of polio to countries where it previously had been eradicated:

After discussion and deliberation on the information provided, and in the context of the global polio eradication initiative, the Committee advised that the international spread of polio to date in 2014 constitutes an ‘extraordinary event’ and a public health risk to other States for which a coordinated international response is essential. The current situation stands in stark contrast to the near-cessation of international spread of wild poliovirus from January 2012 through the 2013 low transmission season for this disease (i.e. January to April). If unchecked, this situation could result in failure to eradicate globally one of the world’s most serious vaccine preventable diseases. It was the unanimous view of the Committee that the conditions for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) have been met.

Although fundamentalist Islamic groups have long accused vaccination campaigns, and especially polio vaccinations, of being efforts by the West to sterilize Muslims, the very high profile case of Dr. Shakeel Afridi carrying out a hepatitis vaccination ruse on on behalf of the CIA in an effort to obtain blood samples from Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad provided a refreshed incentive for attacks on vaccine programs.

Marcy pointed out the stupidity of Leon Panetta’s confirmation that Afridi worked with the CIA in the ruse the day before Panetta’s 60 Minutes segment ran:

Not only does this presumably put more pressure on Pakistan to convict Afridi of treason (he remains in custody), but it exacerbates the problem of having used a vaccination campaign as cover in the first place, confirming on the record that similar campaigns in poor countries might be no more than a CIA front.

I presume someone in the White House gave Panetta permission to go blab this on 60 Minutes; I assume he’s in no more legal jeopardy than Dick Cheney was when he insta-declassified Valerie Plame’s identity.

But shit like this discredits every single claim national security experts make about the need for secrecy. I mean, how are CIA officers ever going to recruit any more assets when the assets know that the CIA director may, at some time in the future that’s politically convenient, go on 60 Minutes and confirm the relationship?

Afridi was eventually sentenced to 30 years imprisonment, not on treason but on other dubious charges and in a shopped venue. And the fallout in Pakistan’s tribal areas from US confirmation of the vaccination ruse was exactly as might be expected: multiple deadly attacks on polio vaccine workers and many new cases of paralyzed children.

While the polio virus circulating in Syria doesn’t appear to have come directly with the Taliban fighters sent from Pakistan, it is indeed a strain from Pakistan’s tribal areas that is in Syria now:

Thirteen cases of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) have been confirmed in the Syrian Arab Republic. Genetic sequencing indicates that the isolated viruses are most closely linked to virus detected in environmental samples in Egypt in December 2012 (which in turn had been linked to wild poliovirus circulating in Pakistan).

WHO is recommending drastic measures, primarily calling for all travelers from Pakistan, Cameroon and Syria to be vaccinated for polio, preferably at least four weeks prior to international travel, but at least at departure if it hasn’t been done earlier. WHO is also calling for increased efforts in vaccinations in countries (Afghanistan, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Israel, Somalia and Nigeria) where the virus is known to be present but from which transmission has not been seen.

So the fears from two years ago on the impact of the CIA’s actions on polio eradication are now met. But keep in mind that it’s not just vaccine programs that were put at risk by this incredibly stupid move. A large alliance of humanitarian groups complained directly to the CIA that all humanitarian groups were put at risk by the move, since the CIA ruse was carried out under cover of a humanitarian organization. Will John Brennan be able to heed this advice?

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Cuts to CIA Militias in Afghanistan Tiny Fraction of Force Available to Them

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Somehow I had missed Kimberly Dozier’s recent move from AP to The Daily Beast. In an article that she published last night, it appears that she is trying to move in on Eli Lake’s territory there as chief CIA mouthpiece. From the breathless opening, it appears that we are to wring our hands over the CIA being forced to dismantle key forces in its counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan:

The CIA is dismantling its frontline Afghan counterterrorist forces in south and east Afghanistan leaving a security vacuum that U.S. commanders fear the Taliban and al-Qaeda will fill—and leaving the Pakistan border open to a possible deluge of fighters and weapons.

“The CIA has started to end the contracts of some of those militias who were working for them,” said Aimal Faizi, spokesman for outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a longtime critic of the CIA’s Afghan operatives. “Some of them were in very important locations, so we deployed our troops there.”

U.S. and Afghan military commanders tell The Daily Beast that Afghan forces are stretched too thin to replace many of those departing CIA paramilitaries. Thousands more CIA-trained operatives are about to get the boot ahead of what already promises to be a bloody summer fighting season. That could mean spectacular attacks against U.S. and Afghan targets just as the White House is weighing its long-term commitment to Afghanistan. And it could give the now-small al-Qaeda movement inside the country more freedom to grow and eventually hatch new plots more than a decade after the invasion meant to wipe out the perpetrators of the Sept. 11th attacks. 

Note this very interesting Twitter conversation between Arif Rafiq and Blake Hounshell regarding the purpose of this article as most likely the CIA leaking the information in order to get some of the changes reversed. But there is another aspect to this story that needs to be considered. As we get further into the story, we get details on the numbers involved:

The forces now facing the chopping block are 750 members of the Counterterrorist Pursuit Teams in the Kunar region — home to the elusive Afghan al-Qaeda leader Farouq al-Qahtani al-Qatari — and the entire 3,500-strong Khost Protection Force.

Completely missing from the article is any mention of another network of small militias that also operate within Afghanistan with CIA and/or JSOC handlers “advising” them: the Afghan Local Police.  I had already noted over a year ago that with the impending pullout of US troops, control of these death squads would transition exclusively to the CIA (note Dozier’s statement that the CIA is not affected by the Bilateral Security Agreement–meaning that they have no intention of leaving even if the military is forced into the “zero option”), even as they are forced to withdraw to fewer bases.

If we look at the latest quarterly report (pdf) from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, we see that the ALP now sits at a force size of 26,647 with all but a little fewer than 900 of them fully trained. That is still a very formidable number of operatives for the CIA to control, and as seen in this post from about a year ago, they have good distribution across the country. These are ruthless forces that are not well-regarded by local residents, as we see in SIGAR’s report: Read more →

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3 Different Inspectors General Say There Is More, Secret, Information on the Tsarnaev Brothers’ Mother

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The Senate Homeland Security Committee is having a hearing on the joint IG Report on the Boston Marathon attack.

Most of the questions will be in closed session, including one Tom Coburn plans to ask about whether the government tracks travel of people who have received asylum from places, they then travel back to those places. (See after 25:00)

At least as interesting a question — another that was largely deferred for closed session — came from Tom Carper. (after 36:25) He asked if there was more information on Zubeidat Tsarnaev that might have led the government to find the attack — and the FBI, IC, and CIA Inspectors General confirmed there was.

Senator Tom Carper: I want to be sensitive to what you can say in a public setting and what you can’t. But I have a couple of questions that relate to Mrs. Tsarnaev, and to the extent that you discuss her that you can share with us in a public setting. I have a couple of specific questions but is there any more general comments that you would like to make about how you address her role in all this that you can share in a public setting?

[Watch David Buckley, CIA’s IG, immediately consulting with his aide in response to this question.]

DOJ IG Michael Horowitz: The one thing that I can say from the standpoint that we looked at, the lead information included information about her, not just Tamerlan. The judgement was made to only look at — to only open on Tamerlan. But we found there was certainly sufficient information if the FBI had wanted to open on her as well that they could have done so. They made the judgment not to. And that was a decision made right at the outset, in March of 2011.

Carper: Others, please.

Intelligence Community IG Charles McCullough: I would agree there was information that we found when we examined the post-bombing information that was collected. I think probably that would have to be discussed in the classified session. But there was information that we found post-bombing that would relate to that Senator.

Carper: Mr. Buckley?

CIA IG David Buckley: Mr. Chairman, I too have information that I’ll impart in the closed session regarding this.

Apparently, the Russian notice describing Tamerlan’s deepening commitment to extremism also included details on Zubeidat.

And three of the four IGs (I believe, but need to review this, FBI, IC (NCTC), and DHS) admitted that had the investigation been focused on Zubeidat, the government might have found more information.

Remember, it was in a conversation between Zubeidat and a friend or relative where discussion of Tamerlan’s aspirations for jihad had come up in Russian collections. If, for example, NSA had collected that conversation but not found it, they might have found it had they searched on her name rather than Tamerlan.

Update: Some interesting quotes on second view.

@11:50, McCullough describes reviewing “anything that was within the US government’s reach before the bombing, but had not been obtained, accessed, or reviewed until after the bombing” (and whether the USG could have known it existed before the bombing). This probably refers to NSA materials.

@46:00 Carper asks whether we might have found Tamerlan without the Russian tip. McCullough responds that we might have through “forensics.”

Carper: If the Russians had not shared their initial tip, would we have had any way to detect Tamerlan’s radicalization?

[McCullough looks lost.]

Carper: If they had not shared their original tip to us, would we have had any way to have detected Tamerlan’s radicalization? What I’m geting at here is just homegrown terrorists and our ability to ferret them out, to understand what’s going on if someone’s being radicalized and what its implications might be for us.

McCullough: Well, the Bureau’s actions stemmed from the memo from the FSB, so that led to everything else in this chain of events here. You’re saying if that memo didn’t exist, would he have turned up some other way? I don’t know. I think, in the classified session, we can talk about some of the post-bombing forensics. What was found, and that sort of thing. And you can see when that radicalization was happening. So I would think that this would have come up, yes, at some point, it would have presented itself to law enforcement and the intelligence community. Possibly not as early as the FSB memo. It didn’t. But I think it would have come up at some point noting what we found post-bombing.

 

 

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US, UK Just Can’t Stop Hiding Prisoners in Afghanistan

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It is a tradition that goes back to the very start of the Great War on Terror. Secret detention of prisoners has been both a central feature of the US approach to its response to terrorism and a rallying point for the creation of new enemies. In order to sustain this practice, the US has resorted to remarkable levels of dissembling and language engineering. Fresh controversy has arisen in Afghanistan centering around Afghanistan’s insistence (rooted in Afghan law), that all Afghan prisoners must be under Afghan control (note: the issue of some 49 or so foreign prisoners the US maintains at Parwan prison is completely separate).

The New York Times first broke the story on this latest controversy on Saturday:

A commission appointed by President Hamid Karzai to investigate detention facilities run by American and British forces in southern Afghanistan claimed Saturday to have uncovered secret prisons on two coalition bases, an allegation that could not be immediately confirmed but that was likely to further complicate relations between the Afghan government and its allies.

“We have conducted a thorough investigation and search of Kandahar Airfield and Camp Bastion and found several illegal and unlawful detention facilities run and operated by foreign military forces,” said Abdul Shakur Dadras, the panel’s chairman.

Additional stories on the issue now have come out from both the Washington Post and AP. The Post story describes the facilities that were found:

Abdul Shokur Dadras, a member of the commission, said two of the jails were overseen by British soldiers at Camp Bastion in Helmand province, while a third jail at that base was under American military control. At Kandahar Airfield, also in the southern part of the country, three more foreign-run prisons were discovered — one controlled by American soldiers, one by the British and one managed by a joint coalition force, Dadras said.

The US, as usual, was quick to declare innocence. From the Times story:

Lt. Col. J. Todd Breasseale, a spokesman for the Defense Department, wrote in an email, “Every facility that we use for detention is well known not only by the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, but also by the I.C.R.C.,” a reference to the International Committee of the Red Cross, a nonpartisan organization that provides humanitarian care for victims of conflict.

The International Security Assistance Force, or I.S.A.F., as the coalition is known, said in a statement on Saturday that it was “aware of their investigative team looking into the detention facilities in Kandahar and Helmand and we are cooperating fully with the investigation on this matter.”

Once again, it appears that a restriction that isn’t really a restriction could be the basis for this latest controversy. From the Times story:

He [Dadras] said his team reviewed the number of prisoners as well as the details of their detention. The issue at Camp Bastion has been aired before. The British military must abide by rules that prohibit the transfer of prisoners to facilities where torture is believed to occur. For now, that concern is unresolved, and the sites where these detainees are held by the British forces could be the locations Mr. Dadras is referring to.

In Kandahar, the details are less clear. American forces are allowed to detain combatants seized on the battlefield for up to 96 hours before turning them over to the Afghan government. It was unclear whether Mr. Dadras was referring to such detainees or whether his commission had uncovered evidence of prisons that were illegally holding Afghans.

As we will see in a bit, this restriction to holding Afghan prisoners for 96 hours applies to British forces as well. Except that as with virtually all “restrictions” on coalition forces in Afghanistan, this one doesn’t apply if they don’t want it to. From the AP story: Read more →

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Was Kabul Hospital Shooting Triggered by Proselytizing?

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Yesterday, Dr. Jerry Umanos and two still unidentified US visitors whom he was greeting were killed outside the Cure International Hospital in Kabul, Dr. Umanos has spent most of each of the last nine years working at Cure International in Kabul while going back to the Chicago area for a few months each year to maintain his clinical practice there as well. The New York Times agonizes over the shooting this morning, noting that there is a “grim trend” in Afghanistan of ” a new wave of so-called green-on-blue shootings spurred by deepening Afghan resentment”. And yet, despite a recitation of the recent attacks on civilians both by the Taliban and Afghan security personnel, the Times ignores what could be a very large clue on just what might have provided the resentment for this particular gunman.

Here are the details of the shooting as recounted by the Times:

The shooting took place at Cure International Hospital, which specializes in the treatment of disabled children and women’s health issues. Afghan police officials said that one of the doctors there was hosting visitors from the United States who, after taking pictures together in front of the hospital, were headed inside when they were attacked.

Among the dead was a pediatrician from Chicago, Dr. Jerry Umanos, who had volunteered at the Cure hospital for almost nine years, treating children and helping train Afghan doctors. There were few details about the other victims on Thursday night.

Afghan officials identified the gunman, who was wounded, as a two-year veteran of the Kabul police force named Ainuddin, who had only recently been assigned to guard the hospital. Witnesses and officials said he fired on the Americans as they approached his security post at the building’s entrance, killing three and wounding a female doctor before entering the interior courtyard and seeking new targets.

The Times provides this description of Cure International:

Cure International, a Christian organization, was started in 1998 in Kenya and now operates hospitals and programs in 29 countries. The organization focuses on health issues for which treatment is difficult to obtain in the developing world, including club foot, cleft palate and untreated burns, according to its website.

A look at the Cure International website shows that the “Christian” part of the organization appears to be particularly strong. From a 2011 blog post by Cure founder Scott Harrison (original links within post retained):

CURE’s mission statement is:
CURE International, healing the sick and proclaiming the kingdom of God.

Those words come directly from Jesus’ own instructions to his disciples – first to the twelve and then to the seventy. The partnership of healing the sick and sharing the good news of “God with us” was linked in almost every facet of His life and work, and CURE strives to be a 21st century expression of Jesus’ 1st century healing ministry.

But what is the “kingdom of God”, how do we recognize it when we see it, and how can we partner with God to proclaim it? Fortunately, Jesus addressed many of these questions, and it’s the aim of this series of posts to humbly shed light on those answers through His own words.

Oh my. So just how enthusiastic is Cure International about its mission to proclaim the kingdom of God? Well, one clue comes from word about a new hospital that Cure will be opening later this year in the Philippines. Here is a snippet from their announcement of a search for medical director for the hospital:

CURE International has begun the search for the first Medical Director for the Tebow CURE Hospital in Davao City, Philippines. The hospital, built in partnership with the Tim Tebow Foundation, will open later this year. CURE is seeking an orthopedic surgeon with experience in a management role and a heart to heal the sick and proclaim the kingdom of God.

Although we have no information about how aggressive Cure International is in “proclaiming the kingdom of God”, their chosen partner for the hospital in the Philippines, Tim Tebow, has a clear history of such proclamations in a  very out-front style that often made other players uneasy.

But recall that Umanos had maintained a practice in the Chicago area as well. It was at Lawndale Christian Health Center: Read more →

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