Chinese hackers target govt, businesses in India

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/

APThe attackers focused on governments, corporations and journalists interested in China.

The group remained undetected for so long as it was able to re-use methods and malware dating back to 2005.

Hackers, most likely from China, have been spying on governments and businesses in Southeast Asia and India uninterrupted for a decade, researchers at internet security company FireEye Inc said.

In a report released on Monday, FireEye said the cyber espionage operations dated back to at least 2005 and "focused on targets - government and commercial - who hold key political, economic and military information about the region."

Bryce Boland, Chief Technology Officer for Asia Pacific at FireEye and co-author of the report, said the attack was still ongoing, noting that the servers the attackers used were still operational, and that FireEye continued to see attacks against its customers, who number among the targets.

China has always denied accusations that it uses the Internet to spy on governments, organisations and companies. Neither the Foreign Ministry nor the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Internet regulator, immediately responded to written requests for comment on the FireEye report on Monday.

The night that tested the Navy

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/yemen-evacuation-riotlike-situation-as-saudi-air-strikes-pound-aden/article7096262.ece?homepage=true

SUHASINI HAIDAR

Special Arrangement.Indian evacuees from Yemen cling to the rescue boat taking them to Navy ship INS Tarkash anchored off Aden. Photo: Special Arrangement.

Saudi air strikes light up Aden. Photo: Special Arrangement

In the choppy Aden waters, INS Tarkash faced unruly crowds.

For the Indian Navy, Operation Rahat has become not just a people-rescue mission, though the force can take credit for helping to ferry home 5,000 Indians safely. In the choppy waters of war-torn Yemen, amid strafing and crossfire, the officers and seamen had to brave heavy odds, as on April 10.

“It was a riot-like situation, with bombs going off, Saudi airstrikes continuing to pound the city, and hundreds of people [of various nationalities] surrounding our ship to get on board and flee the violence,” recounts one of the men on board INS Tarkash of that night that threw the toughest challenge to Indian forces.

The Hindu has accessed photographs and eyewitness accounts from those on board the naval ship of the horrors of that night as the vessel stayed in the waters off Aden, waiting for the last of Indians who could find their way out of a country aflame. Hundreds of men and women arrived on boats, demanding that they be taken to Djibouti by the ship.

One witness said people trying to clamber on to INS Tarkash included armed men, some toting AK-47s. “We turned away anyone who was armed, but later we recovered live and fired ammunition from them, and knives as well,” an official said.

The body of one Indian, Manjeet Singh, who died of injuries when caught in the crossfire coming out of Aden, was brought to Djibouti by the ship, which carried pregnant women, people with cancer and malnourished children.

Yemenis and those of other nationalities desperate to get on to the ship forced Indians to stay back at the harbour until they boarded. “After taking in 200 evacuees and finding that more than 90 per cent of them were Yemenis, we realised they were stopping Indians from coming out to the ship,” one officer said. “We told the Aden port control sternly that unless they send Indians to us on the boats, we would not take Yemenis; they finally budged.” Even so, the ship carried only 50 Indians among more than 460 evacuees to Djibouti.

Asked if the ship had been in any danger, Naval Public Relations Officer Captain D.K. Sharma said: “If our men are stuck and we have to rescue thousands, we use force-protection measures. Our ships are well equipped and the men know how to handle such situations.”

Speaking about the challenges that the naval personnel faced, Captain Sharma said, “When you are going to a place that has fallen to rebels … all the authorities and infrastructure fail. Our men have been working as a sea bridge without respite, to bring Indian citizens out of Yemen, stopping in Djibouti only to make them disembark and then going back into the war zone.”

Yemen Evacuation

One question that remains is why are Indian forces exposed to high risks to rescue nationals of so many countries Read about the brave Navy personnel here

The great Yemen escape: Operation Rahat by numbers 5,600+.  Total number of people evacuated 4,640.  Indians Rescued 960.  foreign nationals rescued 41.  countries whose citizen were rescued by India 2900+.  those evacuated by air through 18 special flights out of Sana a 1670

those rescued by sea from Aden, Al Hudaydah and Al Mukalla

Day-by-day action(Approximate, based on tweets from MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin and General V.K. Singh)

April 1

By: Navy's INS Sumitra

Location: Aden

Evacuated: 348

April 2

By: Navy's INS Sumitra

Location: Al Hudaydah

Evacuated: 300+

April 3

By: 2 flights from Air India

Location:Sana a

Evacuated: 351

April 4

3 Air India flights: 325

Navy's INS Mumbai: 439

April 5

3 Air India flights: 488

2 IAF C-17 flights: 225+229

Navy's INS Sumitra: 203

April 6

3 Air India flights: 574

IAF's C-17: 176

Navy's INS Mumbai: 479

April 7

3 Air India flights: 600+ 

April 8

3 Air India flights: 630 

(Air operations conclude)

April 9

INS Sumitra: 349 

(Evacuation concludes)

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The Big news

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150413/jsp/opinion/story_14187.jsp#.VStLkfmUfsw

Gwynne Dyer

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable," said John Kenneth Galbraith, the wisest American economist of his generation. But you still can't resist wondering when the Chinese economy will be bigger than the economy of the United States of America - or the Brazilian bigger than the British, or the Turkish bigger than the Italian - as if it were some kind of horse race.

The latest document to tackle these questions is "The World in 2050", drawn up by HSBC bank, which ranks the world's 100 biggest economies as they are now, and as (it thinks) they will be in 2050. It contains the usual little surprises, like a prediction that per capita incomes in the Philippines and Indonesia, now roughly the same, will diverge so fast that the average Filipino will have twice the income of the average Indonesian by 2050. But what's happening at the top of the list is of interest to everybody. That's where the great powers all live, with the BRIC nations nipping at their heels. Or rather, some of the BRICs are nipping at their heels, and some are not. That's the big news.

We owe the concept of the BRICs to Jim O'Neill, who came up with it almost 15 years ago when he was head of economics at Goldman Sachs. He was the first to realize that some big, poor countries were growing so fast economically that they would overtake the established great powers in a matter of decades.

For a robust economy in Afghanistan

April 13, 2015

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AP"Only 6 per cent of Afghanistan's land is cultivated; it could increase the yield to its full potential and help switch over from a predominantly opium-driven sector to alternative crop." Picture shows an Afghan farmer collecting raw opium in a poppy field in the Zhari district of Kandahar.

Located in the vicinity of rising economies China and India, Afghanistan has the leverage of benefitting in areas like investment, technical expertise and technology transfer

The overarching focus in Afghanistan on political stability and effectiveness of the security forces is understandable given the nature of the immediate challenges confronting the country. However, in the long run, economic stability will have to figure in as an intrinsic driver towards sustainable peace. While the previous dispensation was predominantly security-driven, President Ashraf Ghani, with his stint at World Bank and as Finance Minister previously, is expected to underscore economic reconstruction as a key component of state-building.

Beyond providing fiscal cushioning, target-oriented economic interventions can help bridge the governance gap and financial deficits — hallmarks of the previous regime, which, as offshoots of a poorly managed economic toolbox, contribute to a widening political and security vacuum. This vacuum, in turn, provides leeway for extremist forces to move in, as established by Sarah Chayes (Carnegie Endowment) in her comprehensive study drawing linkages between governmental corruption and religious extremism, especially in the context of Afghanistan.

Unacceptable decision

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The decision of the Lahore High Court to release Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi from detention was not surprising considering that he had already been granted bail by an anti-terrorism court in December. The Pakistan state has, since the terror attacks in Peshawar in the same period last year, sought to convey a sudden urge to undo the earlier faux pas of granting Lakhvi bail, and contested it. Yet prosecutors failed to mount a proper case, arguing for Lakhvi’s detention only on the issue of “maintenance of public order”. Without a clear-cut case built by prosecutors on charges of engaging in terrorism, it was always a matter of when Lakhvi would be released rather than if. The Indian authorities had marshalled pages of evidence showing the role Lakhvi had played as a controller of the terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008. Apart from audio tapes and transcripts showing his involvement, the testimony of U.S. citizen David Headley who had done reconnaissance in Mumbai before the attacks, and confessions by the captured terrorist Ajmal Kasab were also made available to Pakistan. That these were not properly used to build a case against Lakhvi suggests the laxity and hypocrisy of the Pakistani state. The poor prosecution effort was compounded by witness and judge intimidation. The still-unsolved assassination of special prosecutor Chaudhury Zulfiqar Ali in May 2013 also affected it.

Peace again at stake in Nagaland

NAMRATA GOSWAMI

Source Link

TROUBLE: “The NSCN (K) ceasefire with Myanmar was opposed by other Naga armed groups including the NSCM (I-M).” File photo shows Naga boys with their weapons during the 33rd Republic Day celebration of the NSCM (I-M) in Nagaland.

With the NSCN (K) withdrawing from the ceasefire, trouble could brew once more in Nagaland, putting the government’s ambitious plans for an ASEAN trade gateway at risk

When the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government took power at the Centre, it fast-tracked a solution to the long-standing Nagaland issue and set a deadline of 18 months in November 2014. The renewed focus raised the stakes for the Naga people to achieve an accord. A further impetus came via the plan to transform Nagaland and Manipur into India’s trade gateway to the ASEAN countries. This made peace even more urgent.

Why the United States Should Work With India to Stabilize Afghanistan

Author: Alyssa Ayres, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia

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The international military presence in Afghanistan has shrunk dramatically, and even with a slower pace of troop withdrawal, the country's security situation has already worsened. Iraq's chaos provides a chilling precedent. After fifteen years of involvement in Afghanistan, the United States has a strong interest in a stable future for the fragile democracy. Whether or not it further alters its planned troop withdrawal, the United States should encourage Indian efforts to assist Afghanistan in areas of Indian expertise: democracy, economics, and civilian security. India has been an important economic assistance partner for Afghanistan, and can help in other fields to prevent destabilization. Although Pakistan may object, Washington should make it clear to Islamabad that Indian support for Afghanistan's stability—especially without "boots on the ground"—poses no threat to Pakistani interests and should not be disrupted. 

A Wary Eye to India's Northwest International combat operations in Afghanistan ended in December 2014. From a 2012 peak of 140,000 troops, the international presence now numbers around 12,000 to support and advise Afghan forces. By the end of 2016 that presence will draw down to several hundred U.S. soldiers staying mainly to protect U.S. facilities. President Obama has decided to slow the pace of troop withdrawal this year, but this change does not restore higher troop levels. Nor will there be a return to anything close to half their peak strength. Afghan forces now have responsibility for security. 

The Taliban has outlasted the world’s most potent military forces and its two main factions now challenge the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan. As U.S. troops draw down, the next phase of conflict will have consequences that extend far beyond the region.

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The Taliban was toppled in Afghanistan in 2001 for harboring al-Qaeda, but it has not been defeated. With an estimated core of up to sixty thousand fighters, the Taliban remains the most vigorous insurgent group in Afghanistan and holds sway over civilians near its strongholds in the country’s south and east. It has also metastasized in neighboring Pakistan, where thousands of fighters in the country’s western tribal areas wage war against the government. Now, as the international combat mission in Afghanistan closes, the Taliban threatens to destabilize the region, harbor terrorist groups with global ambitions, and set back human rights and economic development in the areas where it prevails.

Though the Taliban appears unlikely to dismantle the Afghan government and revive its emirate, it poses the most serious challenge to Kabul’s authority even as the United States winds down the longest war in its history and NATO scales back its largest-ever deployment outside of Europe. The insurgents’ resilience calls into question a state-building project that has cost its international backers hundreds of billions of dollars.

The U.S.-led military coalition has suffered nearly 3,500 dead and more than ten thousand wounded. Since 2001, at least twenty-one thousand Afghan civilians have been killed in conflict, and three million people have been displaced, according to the UN refugee agency. Afghan troops and police are dying at their highest ratesever.

The Taliban

http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-organizations-and-networks/taliban/p35985#!/

The Taliban was toppled in Afghanistan in 2001 for harboring al-Qaeda, but it has not been defeated. With an estimated core of up to sixty thousand fighters, the Taliban remains the most vigorous insurgent group in Afghanistan and holds sway over civilians near its strongholds in the country’s south and east. It has also metastasized in neighboring Pakistan, where thousands of fighters in the country’s western tribal areas wage war against the government. Now, as the international combat mission in Afghanistan closes, the Taliban threatens to destabilize the region, harbor terrorist groups with global ambitions, and set back human rights and economic development in the areas where it prevails.

Though the Taliban appears unlikely to dismantle the Afghan government and revive its emirate, it poses the most serious challenge to Kabul’s authority even as the United States winds down the longest war in its history and NATO scales back its largest-ever deployment outside of Europe. The insurgents’ resilience calls into question a state-building project that has cost its international backers hundreds of billions of dollars.

Religious Hatred Spreads In Sri Lanka As Buddhists Target Muslim Minority

Ric Wasserman (2015-04-09) 

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KATARAGAMA — A full moon is shining over the traditional Pooja celebrations here in southwest Sri Lanka. By the light of candles, people offer flowers, fruit and incense. Above waves the Sri Lankan flag, with a leaf in each of its corners to represent the four religions on the island nation: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. 

But this idyllic setting in Kataragama is deceiving. The peaceful coexistence between religions in the country came crashing down last June 15 when hundreds of anti-Muslim Buddhists, led by a dozen monks from the extremist organization Bodu Bala Sena, stormed into Dharga Town, a Muslim suburb of the city of Aluthgama.

Buddhists burned cars, Muslims threw stones. The military opened fire. Fifty people were injured, and four Muslims died. Nine months later, the pain still lingers.

Back in Dharga Town, a young man on crutches enters a house across from the mosque. It's 20-year-old Mohammed Afkar, who lost a leg in last year's outbreak of violence. His mother Zeenathul says they don’t understand what happened. "What did he do to anyone?" she asks. "My strength comes from our local community and my belief in god. I have no faith in promises from any government."

Don’t Believe Those Who Say That The Chinese Military Is ‘Ten-Feet Tall’

Joyce Dong

April 10, 2015

How Powerful Is China’s Military Really?

Recent publications such as the RAND Corporation’s report “China’s Incomplete Military Transformation: Assessing the Weaknesses of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) [4]” and Dennis Blasko’s article “Ten Reasons Why China Will Have Trouble Fighting a Modern War [5]” mark a significant shift [6] away from the usual narrative that China’s economic rise has led to an increasingly militarized and powerful PLA. While the PLA’s military budget continues to grow at double-digit rates, these reports suggest that the “China threat” has been overhyped. The PLA suffers from institutional weaknesses and vulnerabilities, including a lack of professional human capital with adequate combat experience, rampant corruption, and underdevelopment of non-commissioned officers. As a result, the PLA will face difficulties “fight[ing] a modern war against an advanced enemy.”

Commissioned by the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, the RAND report aims to help the United States better “understand where the PLA falls short of its aspirations” so that “U.S. planners and policymakers [can] respond more effectively to the challenges China’s impressive, but incomplete, military transformation poses.” Blasko’s article on the other hand aims to highlight ten challenges identified by PLA commanders themselves “that raise serious questions about the PLA’s current ability to fight a modern war against an advanced enemy.” While the primary audience for both reports is an American one, at least as interesting is what China might take away from the reports’ findings.

The US is bungling its most important diplomatic challenge—and it’s not Iran

Tim Fernholz

April 9, 2015

Source Link

The outline of an agreement to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons is being hailed as the defining diplomatic achievement of the Obama administration, and indeed such a deal would be an accomplishment in nonproliferation. But it isn’t likely to have a huge impact on the security situation in the Middle East, where the current, dangerous dynamic is driven by non-state actors. And it doesn’t mean the American intelligence community can sleep easily; even if Iran doesn’t have the bomb, nuclear Pakistan and North Korea will keep US strategists up at night.

Meanwhile, the White House’s real opportunity to forge an international consensus worth taking credit for is falling by the wayside. It involves the fate of the country’s economic strength, an issue far less dramatic-sounding than the threat of nuclear annihilation, but no less important to the future of American security.

After all, the might of the United States doesn’t come from its world-spanning military, although that helps—it comes from the economic power that, among other things, allows US defense spending to outstrip the next 10 military powers combined. Even then, Iran didn’t come to the negotiating table because it feared US military strikes. It came because the US had implemented a global economic sanctions regime that crippled Iran’s economy; the prospect that a nuclear deal would mean an easing of the sanctions had Iranian youth dancing in the street.

Confirmed: China Deploys New 'Carrier Killer' Missile

By Franz-Stefan Gady

April 11, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/confirmed-china-deploys-new-carrier-killer-missile/

A new report by the Office of Naval Intelligence highlights the growing capabilities of the Chinese Navy. 

This week, the Pentagon’s Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) released an unclassified assessment of the Chinese navy’s new capabilities and missions in the years ahead.

Compared to ONI’s last unclassified analysis on the PLAN six years ago, the more than 300-ship strong Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has “made significant strides in operationalizing as well as modernizing its force,” notes the new 2015 report. Notably different from 2009 is Beijing’s current shipbuilding program, which is now focusing more on the construction of multi-mission vessels rather than anti-surface warfare combatants.

The most striking revelation of the 2015 ONI report is that the PLAN has apparently already equipped a class of guided missile destroyers with China’s most advanced supersonic anti-ship missile. “[T]he newest class, the LUYANG III destroyer is fitted with the new vertically-launched YJ-18 ASCM,” the report says.

China’s Island Builders

By Andrew S. Erickson and Conor M. Kennedy

APRIL 9, 2015

Source Link

Philippine Marines and a local television reporter gesture towards a Chinese Coast Guard vessel, which twice attempted to block a Philippine government supply ship from reaching the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands, in the South China Sea March 29, 2014. (Erik De Castro / Reuters)

Recent satellite images show that the Spratly islands, a series of features in the South China Sea, are growing at a staggering pace. Tons of sand, rocks, coral cuttings, and concrete are transforming miniscule Chinese-occupied outcroppings into sizeable islands with harbors, large multi-story buildings, airstrips, and other government facilities. The parties behind the construction and defense of these islands remain a thinly veiled secret. As China builds up its presence in the South China Sea, it is also greatly increasing its ability to monitor, bully, and even project force against its neighbors. In Machiavelli’s words, Beijing has decided that it is more important to be feared than loved—and that making progress before a new U.S. president pushes back is crucial to its regional aspirations.

Will China and America Clash in Cyberspace?

Jon R. LindsayTai Ming CheungDerek Reveron

April 12, 2015 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/will-china-america-clash-cyberspace-12607?page=show

"The worries over cybersecurity should not risk the mutual value both countries derive from an open and innovative cyberspace."

The information revolution has been a mixed blessing for China and the world. On one hand, computer networks enhance economic productivity, national security, and social interaction. On the other, valuable information infrastructure provides lucrative targets for thieves, spies, and soldiers. Nearly every type of government agency, commercial firm, and social organization benefits from information technology, but they can also be harmed through cyberspace. Not a week goes by where a major hack is not reported in the media or countries chastise each other for cyberespionage.

In the absence of shared norms or even concepts, cybersecurity discourse becomes mired in competing morality tales. Chinese hackers are pillaging intellectual property and creating asymmetric threats. The National Security Agency (NSA) is jeopardizing civil liberties and weakening the Internet. Communist censorship is undermining the democratic promise of information technology, even as American firms unfairly dominate its development. Cybercrime is costing everyone trillions of dollars.

Chinese Nuclear Subs in the Indian Ocean

By P K Ghosh

April 12, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/chinese-nuclear-subs-in-the-indian-ocean/

A Chinese Navy nuclear submarine takes part in an international fleet review to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army Navy in Qingdao, Shandong province April 23, 2009.

An extended deployment has sent a powerful message to the Indian Navy. 

The deployment of a Chinese nuclear submarine – presumably a Type 093 Shang-class – as part of the anti-piracy patrol of two ships and a supply vessel operating off the Gulf of Aden has set alarm bells ringing loudly in the Indian Navy. The implications of such a strategically significant move are simply enormous, as analysts try to decipher the real reason behind deploying such a platform in the region.

Submarines are not appropriate platforms for dealing with pirates or with piracy. The Somali pirates are known to use small craft known as skiffs individually or as part of swarm tactics to attack ships, returning to larger mother ships nearby. This gives them large operating ranges. Such highly manoeuvrable crafts can hardly be chased by relatively slow moving submarines or torpedoed from underwater, making submarines quite superfluous to anti-piracy operations. Apart from this, in a region where the incidence of piracy has declined to negligible levels, such that other navies are scaling back their presence, China is actually increasing its patrol strength.

China accuses Obama of hypocrisy in remarks on South China Sea

By Stuart Leavenworth

Published: April 10, 2015

Source Link

According to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative report, this image dated March 16, 2015, shows a chain of artificial land formations, along with new structures, fortified seawalls and construction equipment. 

The Obama administration has been very busy dealing with nuclear negotiations with Iran, a war against the Islamic State, a new conflict in Yemen and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Yet the understandable focus on these other crises has obscured China's efforts to speed up its militarization of the South China Sea. 

Disputes over territory in the South China Sea have escalated as China expands the reach of its military to back its territorial interests and challenges decades of U.S. Navy dominance in the Pacific. 

The recent hostilities between Israel and Hamas are a chance for the United States to think strategically. Or, better yet, rethink — specifically the Obama administration’s “pivot to the Pacific.” 

BEIJING (Tribune News Service)— China accused the United States of hypocrisy Friday over President Barack Obama’s comments that the rising Asian power is using its “sheer size and muscle” to intimidate other nations in the South China Sea.

Saudi Arabia’s American-Backed War in Yemen Went Really Badly Today

BY ELIAS GROLL

APRIL 9, 2015

Source Link

Through its backing of Saudi Arabia — with bombs, intelligence, refueling, and search-and-rescue capabilities — and Riyadh’s military intervention in Yemen, the United States is effectively at war with the impoverished land that occupies the southwestern heel of the Arabian Peninsula. That war is going spectacularly badly.

Two weeks ago, Riyadh and a coalition of Gulf states intervened in Yemen with a campaign of airstrikes aimed at halting the advance of Houthi rebels and restoring President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power.

Neither of those goals currently appears achievable. Instead of being halted, the Houthi rebels, whom Saudi Arabia claims are backed by Iran, have gained territory. On Thursday, they took the city of Ataq, a Sunni stronghold. Local residents told Reuters that the city’s security forces and tribal chiefs helped the Houthis enter the city.

The struggle for Syria

VIJAY PRASHAD

Source Link

FALLEN CAPITAL: “Al-Nusra alongside the various outfits of the anti-Damascus bloc seized Idlib near Turkey’s border.” Islamic State fighters overran much of the camp last week, marking the extremists' deepest foray yet into the Syrian capital. The IS incursion in the latest trial for Yarmouk and its estimated 18,000 remaining residents, who have already survived a devastating two-year government siege, starvation and disease.

Hope for peace in Syria might no longer vest in the exhausted population. The possibility of a thaw between Iran and Saudi Arabia could lessen the geopolitical conflict in the country

Inexplicable is the fate of Syria. Its ongoing conflict has claimed the lives of more than 2,00,000 people and sent 16 million Syrians out of their homes. A donor’s conference for the humanitarian crisis in Kuwait raised $3.8 billion, less than half of what the United Nations had requested. Only half of the pledges are generally honoured, so the gap is significant. The World Food Programme’s Elisabeth Byrs said that “a critical shortage of funding” has led to a retrenchment of aid. Malnutrition and illiteracy lie on the horizon for Syrian refugees.

Geopoliticus: The FPRI Blog

Clint Watts

One year later, ISIS overtakes al Qaeda: What’s next?

A year ago, the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) was on the rise but few expected them to travel such a rapid trajectory to the top of the global jihadi community. The fighting (fitna) to kick off 2014 between Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s arm in Syria, and ISIS seemed, at first, to be undermining the greatest jihadi foreign fighter mobilization in history. But in June 2014, ISIS swept into northern Iraq simultaneously seizing Mosul and the minds of jihadi supporters worldwide by doing what al-Qaeda always discussed but never delivered--an Islamic State. Through audacity, violence against Assad, Shia, the West, and slick social media packaging, ISIS now dominates the global jihadi scene. Foreign fighters have flocked to ISIS ranks and when unable to travel, have sworn allegiance to ISIS (bayat) in groups across North Africa to Southeast Asia.

Building from the estimates and scenarios created last March 2014 (ISIS Rise From al Qaeda’s House of Cards), I’ve generated a new estimate of the fractures between ISIS and al-Qaeda seen here in Figure 9. I’ve also pasted below this post the estimate of these fractures one year ago for comparison (Figure 4). 

The IB knows all

Mohan Guruswamy

Apr 11, 2015

http://www.asianage.com/columnists/ib-knows-all-080

The IB is very good at information trivia. Who came and who went is its standard fare. It often flubs when it comes to reading the obvious or connecting the dots. Most people don’t realise that spying is not entirely about catching traitors, but mostly about gathering information. 

The media is making a frenzied meal out of the alleged snooping of the remnants of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s family in Calcutta from 1948 to 1968. According to official sources in Japan, Bose died on August 18, 1945, from third-degree burns, when the overladen Mitsubishi K1-21 bomber crashed shortly after takeoff from Taihoku in Formosa (Taiwan). Bose was accompanied by Lt. Gen. Tsunamasa Shidei, Vice-Chief of Staff of the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria, and his secretary, Col. Habibur Rahman of the Indian National Army. While the Japanese crew and Gen. Shidei died immediately, Bose survived with severe burns. Col. Rahman escaped unscathed. Bose was treated by Japanese doctors but did not survive. He was cremated on August 20 and his ashes were flown to Tokyo and handed over to Rama Murti, president of the Tokyo Indian Independence League. On September 14, after a ceremony, the urn was placed in the Renkoji temple in Tokyo, where they still lie — unclaimed by a family which will not let him rest in peace and unclaimed by a government too afraid to provoke a storm.

US Anxious Over Russia's Growing Cyberwar Capabilities

Ekaterina Blinova

17 09.04.2015

http://sputniknews.com/science/20150409/1020669795.html

The US government is becoming more concerned over the emerging challenge posed by Russia's growing cyberwarfare capabilities; Washington now considers Russia one of the most sophisticated nation-state actors in cyberspace.

Washington has expressed its deep concerns regarding Russia's growing cyberwarfare capabilities, qualifying the country as one of the most sophisticated nation-state actors in cyberspace, noted Franz-Stefan Gady, an expert in military affairs and cyber diplomacy.

"While I can't go into detail here, the Russian cyber threat is more severe than we had previously assessed," James Clapper, the Director of US National Intelligence, warned at the 2015 presentation of the "Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community," as quoted by the expert.

Russian Authorities Trying to Obliterate All Mention of Its Troops Fighting and Dying in the Ukraine

Mark Krutov

April 10, 2015

Russia’s Missing Article: Censorship, Prudence, Or A Win For Moscow’s Troll Army?

MOSCOW – For three straight days last weekend, the employees of the Novaya Buryatia newspaper in southern Siberia used scissors to remove an article from 50,000 copies of the weekly before it could be distributed.

The same article, which had been posted a few days earlier on the paper’s website, was pulled down. (It can be seen in an archived file here.)

As a result, an article that was intended to clear up some mysteries involving alleged Russian military participation in the fighting in eastern Ukraine has itself become the center of a mystery: Is this a case of Soviet-style censorship? Or was it an example of the successful functioning of the Kremlin’s notorious “troll army”?

“I think this is a case of censorship on the part of the security services because I have felt pressure from them myself,” says Arkady Zarubin, a journalist with the Buryat newspaper Arshan. “They have tried in many ways to influence my publications and have even directly told me which ones shouldn’t be published.”

Russia’s Return to a Cold War ‘Enemies All Around Us’ Mentality Where Lies and Deception Are Again the Norm

Peter Pomerantsev

April 10, 2015

Inside the Kremlin’s hall of mirrors

Fake news stories. Doctored photographs. Staged TV clips. Armies of paid trolls. Has Putin’s Russia developed a new kind of information warfare – fought in the ‘psychosphere’ rather than on the battlefield? Or is it all just a giant bluff

The thing that Margo Gontar found easiest to deal with were the dead children. They were all over her computer screens – on news sites and social media – next to headlines that blamed the deaths on Ukrainian fascist gangs trained by Nato. It was early 2014, Crimea had just been taken over by soldiers who seemed Russian and sounded Russian but who were wearing no national insignia, and who Vladimir Putin, with a little grin, had just told the whole world were not Russian at all. Now eastern Ukraine was being taken over by separatists. Gontar was trying to fight back.

She could usually locate the original images of the dead with a simple Google search. Some of the photographs were actually from other, older wars; some were from crime scenes that had nothing to with Ukraine; some even came from movies. Gontar posted her research on a myth-busting website called StopFake, which had been started in March by volunteers like her at the journalism school of Mohyla University in Kiev. It felt good being able to sort truth from lies, to feel some kind of certainty amid so much confusion.

Murphy's Law: Politics On The Battlefield

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20150406.aspx

April 6, 2015: For over a decade now the U.S. Army intelligence bureaucracy has been trying to cope with a procurement disaster that will not go away. This all began when the U.S. Air Force developed a data mining and analysis system that, when adapted for army use, turned out to be more expensive and less effective than commercial products. A 2012 government investigation reported the problems in great detail. But senior army commanders and Department of Defense procurement bureaucrats continued to block the use of commercial products the troops preferred. Now SOCOM (Special Operations Command) troops are complaining that a superior system (Palantir) they have been using since 2009 is becoming more difficult to obtain because of more aggressive interference from the procurement bureaucracy and contractor lobbyists.

The problem was that the army system (DCGS or Distributed Common Ground System) was cobbled together on the fly, in the midst of a war and has not aged well. Several investigations, in response to growing complaints from the troops, found that the army refused to recognize the problems with DCGS or get them fixed, or allow cheaper and more capable commercial software (like Palantir) to be used instead of DCGS.

Europe's Nightmare: Ukraine's Massive Meltdown

Dmitri Trenin

April 10, 2015 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/europes-nightmare-ukraines-massive-meltdown-12597

"Above all, what Ukraine needs today is for the West to lean hard on Kiev in support of economic and political reform."

The Minsk II accord is not a peace deal. It is a cease-fire agreement, and a fragile one at that. Beyond suspending large-scale hostilities, pulling back heavy weapons and exchanging prisoners of war, Minsk can hardly be implemented.

Kiev cannot and will not pay for the Donbass’ rehabilitation, and would not talk to the rebel leaders. Economic ties are not being restored, and human contacts are restricted. Reintegrating Donbass into the rest of Ukraine is only acceptable to Kiev if the rebel forces de facto surrender and their administrative structures disappear, allowing Ukraine to resume control over the section of the border that links Donetsk and Lugansk to Russia. Theoretically, this could only be achieved through Kiev’s military victory, or the Kremlin’s political collapse. Neither of these is realistic at this point. The conflict is currently frozen.

The Reconquista of the Mosque of Córdoba

BY ERIC CALDERWOOD

APRIL 10, 2015 

Source Link

Spain’s most famous mosque is at the center of a dispute between activists seeking to preserve its Muslim heritage, and the Catholic Church, which has claimed it as its own. The result could determine the future of Islam in Europe. 

CÓRDOBA, Spain — For a few weeks last fall, the Mosque of Córdoba, Europe’s most important Islamic heritage site, disappeared from the map.

Or, at least, from Google Maps. If a tourist had Googled directions to the mosque in mid-November, he or she would have only found a reference to the Cathedral of Córdoba — the Catholic house of worship that lies within the mosque’s ancient walls.

The disappearance of Spain’s most famous mosque (and also one of its main tourist attractions) spawned a public outcry. Spaniards flooded Google Maps’ editor with indignant emails, and a group of citizen activists in Córdoba launched an online petition demanding that Google Maps restore the word “mosque” to the monument’s name. The petition accused the bishop of Córdoba of a “symbolic appropriation” of the monument, and it warned that the change to the monument’s name “erases, in the stroke of a pen, a fundamental part of its history.” The petition received over 55,000 signatures in less than three days. On Nov. 25, Google reinstated the mosque, under the official name that has been in use since the early 1980s: the “Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba.”