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Science & Technology

SOCOM Orders Cropduster Attack Planes from L3Harris Technologies

2022-08-02

[Defense One] U.S. Special Operations Command has chosen L3Harris Technologies to supply up to 75 attack planes based on a cropduster aircraft in a deal that could be worth $3 billion. It’s a huge win for the the country’s sixth-largest defense contractor which in recent years has looked to grow from a Florida-based electronics supplier to a lead contractor of high-end weapons and a disruptor among its larger peers. "This rugged, sustainable platform will operate in permissive environments and austere conditions around the world to safeguard our Special Operations Forces on the ground," USSOCOM Commander Gen. Richard Clarke said in an emailed statement. L3Harris’ aircraft is a weaponized Air Tractor AT-802, a turboprop agricultural aircraft that typically flies around 150 mph. The initial contract awarded Monday is worth $170 million, but could reach $3 billion by 2029 if all of the options are exercised. "We decided to take a clean-sheet approach to this program to align with the requirements," L3Harris CEO Chris Kubasik said during the company’s quarterly earnings call last week. "[The] team has spent a fair amount of money in [research and development] and capital. We've had lots of demos that have gone well that we think position us in a good place to potentially win this program."

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-Great Cultural Revolution

Whistleblower Gives Evidence The Pentagon Holds Female Soldiers To Lower Standards

2022-02-14

[The Federalist] According to an anonymous whistleblower letter posted by Air Force Times, Pentagon policy makers are promoting "diversity and inclusion" at the expense of high, uncompromised standards in an elite Special Operations Forces command. The letter focuses an unnamed female captain who began training with the Special Tactics Training Squadron (STTS) in 2018, hoping to become the first woman to join a combat controller team (CCT). The female captain dropped out of physically demanding combat controller course exercises several times, but unlike male trainees with similar difficulties, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) officials kept extending special concessions to keep her in the program. The detailed anonymous letter reported 11 examples of unusual concessions that AFSOC extended to retain the female captain, even though she had not met longstanding standards and repeatedly dropped out of essential training events, such as rigorous diving exercises and solo land navigation. Air Force Times, which confirmed details with a second source, obtained performance forms and score charts that appeared to support the whistleblower’s letter, and submitted them for comment to AFSOC Commander Lt. Gen. Jim Slife. Slife did not refute specific allegations, citing privacy considerations, but he vehemently denied that AFSOC standards had changed: "While the standards remain the same, the norms have not." This is an equivocation, based on a half-truth. "Norms" did change last year when U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) Commander General Richard Clarke released his Diversity & Inclusion Strategic Plan. The Center for Military Readiness analyzed the SOCOM diversity mandate, noting that 12 times on 20 pages, the document asserted without evidence that "Diversity and inclusion are operational imperatives." These vacuous, unsupported words have triggered turbulence in one of the nation’s most elite fighting forces, and probably more we don’t know about.

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Afghanistan

ANDSF requires assistance to counter Taliban sez USSOF chief

2021-03-27

[KhaamaPress] US special operations forces chief, Gen Richard Clarke told the Senate Armed Services Committee, that Afghan national defense and security forces require US assistance to counter the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... "The capabilities that the US provides for the Afghans to be able to combat the Taliban and other threats that reside in Afghanistan are critical to their success," US news quoted Clarke According to Military Times, the US general declined to provide any details of possible options he has outlined to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on how he could provide needed counterterrorism troops or capabilities if special operations forces are not physically in Afghanistan. The Spec Ops General declined to provide further details on the possible option he has outlined to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for providing required counterterrorism troops and capabilities, in case U.S special forces are not physically available in Afghanistan. According to Clarke, United States will always provide options to fight and defeat al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Despite Clarke’s previous visit to Afghanistan and efforts for peace violence in the country has escalated. This comes as Taliban warned against Biden’s withdrawal remarks that delay in American forces presence in Afghanistan will violate the US-Taliban deal. Those who will violate the deal will be responsible for continuation and escalation of violence, the statement added. Taliban called on the US that they are committed to the US-Taliban deal and no time should be wasted in grabbing this historic opportunity being disturbed due to incitement by warmongering circles and flawed advice. According to the statement if the deal is violated the group will continue its "jihad and fight" against the US to liberate the country. Earlier, United States President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem mschine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family... in a presser on Thursday said that meeting the May 1st deadline is hard for troops withdrawal for tactical reasons. Taliban front man, Mohammad Naeem told the media, that all tactical reasons for the withdrawal have been settled in the Doha agreement. According to US and Afghan officials Taliban has not cut ties with al-Qaeda and intensified violence across Afghanistan.

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Home Front: WoT

The Illegal CIA Operation That Brought Us 9/11

2019-01-28

[Truthdig] In the latest installment of "Scheer Intelligence," the journalists tell Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer how an interview with Richard Clarke, the counterterror adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, led them to a jaw-dropping revelation regarding two hijackers involved in the infamous attacks. As it turns out, Khalid Muhammad Abdallah al-Mihdhar ...who is in our archives in abbreviated form as Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two men linked to al-Qaida, were staying at an FBI informant’s home in San Diego in 2000, and they were being tracked by the National Security Agency. Despite knowledge of the men’s ties to the terrorist organization responsible for 9/11, neither was investigated by the FBI. Clarke and others believe that this may have had to do with a CIA attempt to turn the two men into agency informants.

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Europe

More on the Euro 'Mumbai-style' terror plot

2010-10-05

U.S. authorities plan a law enforcement surge on Friday along Amtrak routes, an exercise called RailSafe, in which uniformed officers will be a visible presence on national transit routes. RailSafe will include all the local police agencies along the Amtrak routes involved in the exercise. The stepped-up security comes as the French arrested 12 terror suspects in Bordeaux and Marseilles, and as the U.S. used CIA drones to attack a suspected center of the plot in Pakistan. The target hit Monday was one of the terror training camps Hurrah -- finally we're going after the training camps, not just personal compounds. The ISI are no doubt seriously displeased; if they're smart they're becoming nervous, too, because this is a sign that President Obama is no longer framing his thoughts about Pakistan in the rosy memory of that quail-hunting Christmas holiday with his college roommate's family. in the Waziristan region where U.S. officials say a contingent of German citizens of Afghan and Turkish descent have been preparing for jihad against Europe. U.S. officials say some have already been dispatched, likely those with their faces obscured in a recently released propaganda tape. U.S. authorities say they have tracked one of the suspected German terror cells to the German city of Hamburg. Some of the suspects worked as cleaners at the Hamburg airport, Goody. and many also attended the same mosque in Hamburg where the 9/11 hijackers gathered. To the amazement of US officials, it turns out the imam of the mosque is the same man accused by the U.S. nine years ago of helping finance the 9/11 plot, Mamoun Darkazanli. "The mosque went back to being a very radical place where people are recruited for attacks where attacks are discussed," said former White House national security official Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant, "and German intelligence apparently stopped looking closely at the mosque where a lot of 9/11 was planned." Or not. Were I a German intelligence official, Mr. Clarke is the person I'd be least likely to share work secrets with. Darkazanli, who was never charged by the Germans, declined to comment about the latest plot when approached by ABC News.

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Terror Networks

Al Qaeda No. 2 Threatens More U.S. Attacks

2010-07-29

Al Qaeda's second in command Ayman Al-Zawahiri has surfaced again, this time threatening more attacks against the U.S. and the West. "Oh American people -- We offered you a peace plan, and mutual benefit; but your governments were proud and haughty, and so the attacks against you followed one after another, everywhere — from Indonesia to Times Square, by way of Madrid and London. And the attacks are ongoing, and more will come one after another," said Zawahiri, according to a transcript provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute, based in Washington, DC. Zawahiri also continued his promise of near victory in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other issues. Former White House national security official Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant, said that up until this point, there haven't been any correlations between Zawahiri's past threats and any attacks actually occurring. "U.S. government and counterterrorism officials are not going to increase their alert based on Zawahiri's statement, because of his previous track record," Clarke said. "But they're on relatively high alert already because of the increase in homegrown terrorist threats related to al Qaeda." The 47-minute audio message, a eulogy for Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid, was posted on jihadist websites July 27 by al Qaeda's media arm Al-Sahab.

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Terror Networks

Analysis of Abdulmutallab tape shows not all footage is new

2010-04-29

The new al Qaeda video of accused bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab at a desert training camp included footage that had been released previously, in January, 2009, according to a frame by frame analysis by terrorism expert Evan Kohlman of Flashpoint Global Partners. The al Qaeda propaganda video was provided to a Yemeni journalist working for ABC News earlier in the week. While the scenes of Abdulmutallab holding a weapon and speaking had not been previously made public, the footage of a al Qaeda fighters firing weapons at targets including a Jewish star and the British Union Jack were included in an al Qaeda propaganda tape made public in January, 2009, according to Kohlman's analysis. Kohlman found a "precisely matching pattern of bullet holes" in the targets. Al Qaeda frequently mixes and matches old and new videos in its propaganda releases, according to western counter-terrorism officials. "The release of the video by al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula may be an attempt to demonstrate to their followers and potential recruits that they are still strong despite Yemeni government raids and US bombing," said Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant and former White House counter-terrorism official. US officials say the most significant parts of the tape are what appear to be the newly released scenes of Abdulmutallab with a weapon in his hand and his martyrdom statement in which he provides justification for jihad against the United States and "the Jews and the Christians and their agents." Kohlman said the video of he accused bomber is "definitely new (and authentic)" and wonders whether the attempt to splice in the earlier camp footage was an effort "to thrown off investigators" who are studying the tape. "Either that or Abdulmutallab was an AQAP operative for much longer than anyone thought," Kohlman said in an e-mail message to ABC News. Attorney General Eric Holder said yesterday he and other Justice Department officials had seen the video of Abdulmutallab. Asked for his comment, Eric said only, "I have seen it." Kohlman's said that other footage showing al Qaeda fighters shooting at what appeared to be an unmanned surveillance aircraft seemed familiar but that he had not yet found a match to any previously propaganda tapes. "They show them apparently firing on the US predator, when in fact the US drones have done significant damage to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," said ABC News consultant Clarke.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran Nuclear Scientist Defects to U.S. In CIA 'Intelligence Coup'

2010-03-31

Yesterday's story with more detail ... An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances, has defected to the CIA and been resettled in the United States, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials. The officials were said to have termed the defection of the scientist, Shahram Amiri, "an intelligence coup" in the continuing CIA operation to spy on and undermine Iran's nuclear program. A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment. In its declassified annual report to Congress, the CIA said, "Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons though we do not know whether Tehran eventually will decide to produce nuclear weapons." Amiri, a nuclear physicist in his early 30s, went missing last June three days after arriving in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage, according to the Iranian government. He worked at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University, which is closely connected to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, according to the Associated Press. "The significance of the coup will depend on how much the scientist knew in the compartmentalized Iranian nuclear program," said former White House counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant. "Just taking one scientist out of the program will not really disrupt it." Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, and other Iranian officials last year blamed the U.S. for "kidnapping" Amiri, but his whereabouts had remained a mystery until now. According to the people briefed on the intelligence operation, Amiri's disappearance was part of a long-planned CIA operation to get him to defect. The CIA reportedly approached the scientist in Iran through an intermediary who made an offer of resettlement on behalf of the United States. Since the late 1990s, the CIA has attempted to recruit Iranian scientists and officials through contacts made with relatives living in the United States, according to former U.S. intelligence officials. Case officers have been assigned to conduct hundreds of interviews with Iranian-Americans in the Los Angeles area in particular, the former officials said. Amiri has been extensively debriefed since his defection by the CIA, according to the people briefed on the situation. They say Amiri helped to confirm U.S. intelligence assessments about the Iranian nuclear program. One Iranian web site reported that Amiri had worked at the Qom facility prior to his defection. The New York Times reported Saturday that international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies suspect "Tehran is preparing to build more sites in defiance of United Nations demands." "The Americans are definitely letting the Iranians know that they are active in going after Iran's nuclear program," said Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American journalist. A colleague of Amiri's at Tehran University called the disappearance "a disturbing sign" and blamed the Saudis for helping the U.S., according government-approved English-language web site Press TV. "The Saudi regime has effectively discredited itself and will be seen by those who know what has gone on in the region as being confined to American demands and effectively abiding by American wishes," said Mohammad Marandi, a Tehran University professor, according to the Iranian web site.

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Home Front: WoT

Officials: Only A Failed Detonator Saved Northwest Flight

2009-12-28

Officials now say tragedy was only averted on Northwest flight 253 because a makeshift detonator failed to work properly. "We've known for a long time that this is possible," said Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar and ABC News consultant, "and that we really have to replace our scanning devices with more modern systems." Bomb experts say there was more than enough explosive to bring down the Northwest jet, which had nearly 300 people aboard, had the detonator not failed, and the nation's outdated airport screening machines may need to be upgraded. "We've known for a long time that this is possible," said Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar and ABC News consultant, "and that we really have to replace our scanning devices with more modern systems." Clarke said full body scans were needed, "but they're expensive and they're intrusive. They invade people's privacy." Al Qaeda, said Clarke, is aware of this vulnerability in the U.S. airport security system. "They know that this is a weakness and an Achilles' heel in our airport security system and this is the second time they've tried it."

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Africa Subsaharan

U.S. Mulls Striking Somali Terrorist Training Camps

2009-04-20

H/T Weasel Zippers Anyone really, really think The One will do this? The Obama administration is watching more than just pirates in Somalia. Officials have been tracking a Somali terrorist group and are weighing whether to strike some of its training camps. The fear is that the group, al-Shabab, could join forces with al-Qaida and target the U.S Everyone is now joining forces and targeting the U.S. A senior government official tells NPR that because the U.S. military is worried about al-Shabab, all options are on the table -- including a military strike. The official said the most likely scenario would be an attack from the air, not boots on the ground. "Journalist" forgot to add, "Because our military is so over-extended between Iraq and Afghanistan Until now, the group has concentrated its efforts in Somalia, but officials, including National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter, worry about al-Shabab's future intentions. "As a general matter, the focus has remained in Somalia. But I am not in a business where I am willing to bet the farm that it will remain that way," Leiter said in a speech before the Aspen Institute earlier this month. The al-Shabab camps have a kind of open-door policy: They don't just train al-Shabab recruits; they will welcome anyone who arrives claiming to fight for jihad. Two recent suicide bombings targeting South Korean tourists in Yemen were linked to the al-Shabab camps. Not everyone thinks a military strike will solve the problem. "The calculus always has to be, on a military attack, are you better off after it than you were before," says Richard Clarke, the former National Coordinator for Counterterrorism. If Mr. Clarke had done anything positive while he was the former 'National Coordinator', maybe we wouldn't be in this situation. He had wanted the Clinton administration to bomb al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan years before the Sept. 11 attacks. "If the answer is no, you've made things worse for Americans in general, and you have raised the risk to the United States or United States embassy or United States citizens, then it is probably not something you want to do." J. Peter Pham, a professor at James Madison University who has studied al-Shabab, also worries that if the U.S. decided to launch a military strike, it would backfire. Right now, he says, al-Shabab isn't particularly popular in Somalia, but a U.S. attack could change that. "A bombing run or other attack risks allowing them to wrap themselves up in the mantel of nationalism, and that might actually bring up the level of public support for them," Pham says. The ones who are still alive, that is ... Al-Shabab doesn't have widespread support in Somalia for a number of reasons. When the group tried to outlaw a narcotic called khat in one of the towns it controlled, for example, it sparked a riot. Al-Shabab responded by quietly rolling back its edict. The group also encountered resistance when it tried to make women completely veil themselves. They really tried to take the khat away? Dumber than I thought they were The point is: Somalis like al-Shabab not for its ideas, but for the relative security it provides. Where al-Shabab seems to have developed a loyal following is among the Somali diaspora, including in the United States. The State Department put al-Shabab on its list of terrorist organizations last year. Some critics say the listing ended up giving the group prestige it didn't deserve. Al-Shabab means "The Youth" in Arabic, and in many ways, that describes the militia perfectly. Sorta like how 'Taliban' describes those students ... The members are young and portray themselves as a kind of jihadi hip. The recruiters who try to convince new soldiers to come into the fold look like young men who have just barely entered their teens, and the group's recruitment videos are filled with hip-hop music. "We're simply fighting for the sake of Allah, and we're defending the religion of Allah," one young man says in a video. "We have a global mission. That's why America puts us number 41 in the terrorist list." That's not a translation of an al-Shabab video -- it was actually produced in English, clearly for a Western audience. The FBI believes such videos -- along with recruiters on the ground -- helped convince some young Somali-Americans to join al-Shabab. At least two dozen young men from Minneapolis, which has the largest Somali community in the U.S., have gone missing over the past two years. Good guess That raises another problem for U.S. planners mulling a military strike: If American citizens are on the ground, could they carry out a military attack? Killing American teenagers from Minneapolis could be a political nightmare. Only if you fail to ask yourself why they were in Somalia in the first place ... Whether or not there were any Minnesotians there, the claim would be, they were. Back in 2002, a suspected American al-Qaida operative named Kamal Derwish was killed by a U.S. Predator strike in Yemen. The death was so controversial, the CIA and the military still haven't admitted that Derwish was killed that day. I wouldn't admit it either. Let 'em keep guessing who did it.

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Home Front: WoT

Terrorists get ready to take on new team

2008-12-14

By Richard Clarke

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Home Front: WoT

TIME: British Territory Used for US Terror Interrogation

2008-08-01

Almost two years have passed since President George W. Bush publicly acknowledged the existence of a CIA program in which agency-leased aircraft fly terror suspects between secret prisons and interrogation sites around the world. "This program has helped us to take potential mass murderers off the streets before they have a chance to kill," the President said on Sept. 6, 2006. Since that admission, the White House has declined to elaborate or comment further on the program's specifics, although multiple reports have surfaced regarding the existence of secret facilities in Poland and Romania. According to a former senior American official, it appears another locale can be added to the international roster of interrogation sites -- one both more obscure and potentially more controversial than the alleged sites in Poland and Romania. The source tells TIME that, in 2002 and possibly 2003, the U.S. imprisoned and interrogated one or more terrorist suspects on Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean controlled by the United Kingdom. The official, a frequent participant in White House Situation Room meetings after Sept. 11 who has since left government, says a CIA counter-terrorism official twice said that a high-value prisoner or prisoners were being held and interrogated on the island. The identity of the captive or captives was not made clear. According to this account, the CIA officer surprised attendees by volunteering the information, apparently to demonstrate that the agency was doing its best to obtain valuable intelligence. According to this single source, who requested anonymity because of the classified nature of the discussions, the U.S. may also have kept prisoners on ships within Diego Garcia's territorial waters, a contention the U.S. has long denied. The White House meetings were also attended by a variety of other senior counter-terrorism officials. TIME discussed the allegation with Richard Clarke, who served as a Special Advisor to President George W. Bush on the National Security Council dealing with counter-terrorism until 2003 but is not the source for this story. "In my presence, in the White House, the possibility of using Diego Garcia for detaining high value targets was discussed," says Clarke.

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