• U.K. to deploy troops in Somalia, South Sudan to foster “less terrorism and less migration”

    British prime minister David Cameron has said that hundreds of British troops will be deployed to Somalia and South Sudan to train African peacekeeping forces in order to foster “less terrorism and less migration.” Over the years the United Kingdom has contributed to many peacekeeping missions, but now its role is largely limited to providing about 280 troops participating in the current mission in Cyprus. The United Kingdom has also given about £260 million in aid to South Sudan since the start of the civil war in December 2013.

  • Islamist who took part in destroying Timbuktu monuments sent to the Hague to face charges

    An Islamic extremist charged with involvement in the destruction of religious buildings in the historic city of Timbuktu in Mali in 2012 has been arrested Saturday and sent to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Legal scholars note that Ahmad Al Mahdi Al Faqi, aka Abu Tourab, is the first suspect in ICC custody charged with destroying religious or historical monuments, which is a war crime. The court said in a statement he was a member of Ansar Dine, an Islamic extremist group with links to al-Qaeda which ruled the break-away northern Mali from April 2012 to February 2013. Ansar Dine joined with separatist Tuareg forces to drive the Mali army out of northern Mali – an area the size of France – and declare the independent state of Azawad. Abu Tourab is charged with participation in the destruction of ten historic buildings, including mausoleums and a mosque in Timbuktu.

  • How many times does CBP’s Mark Borkowski get to fail?

    Once again Mark Borkowski has testified before Congress in recent months, detailing the status of the Arizona Technology Plan, or what he calls the “Plan.” According to Borkowski’s testimony, new border wall surveillance infrastructure and technology are already failing to meet management deadlines; he also acknowledges a highly critical GAO report on the status of his newest border security plan. The Plan is the lynchpin of the Southern Border and Approaches Campaign – previously called the Secure Border Initiative Network (SBInet). SBInet never worked and fell hopelessly behind schedule, and in 2011 DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano pulled the plug on it. SBInet was preceded by other costly border-security technology failure – for example, the Intelligent Computer-Aided Detection system (ICAD11 and ICAD 111), the Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS), the American Shield Initiative (ASI),the Secure Border Initiative Tactical Initiative (SBI TI), and Project 28. Despite these failures, the CBP has not constructed a reasonable way in which to measure the success or failure of its new $1 billion dollar Plan. How many times does CBP’s Borkowski get to fail?

  • Bi-partisan Senate bill to make it easier for terrorism victims to sue foreign governments

    A bill sponsored by a bipartisan group of Senators and which was introduced last week would make it easier for victims of acts of terrorism to sue foreign governments and private-sector bodies financing and supporting terrorism. In December, Senators passed, by unanimous consent, an identical bill, but the House adjourned before taking up the measure. The bill’s sponsors said that the language is aimed at federal appellate court rulings which created uncertainty about when terror victims can sue.

  • The stories of Islamic State defectors

    Much has been written about the young men and women who join the Islamic State. We are familiar with their biographies and pathways, backgrounds and motivations. But virtually nothing is known about those who quit: the “defectors” who did not like what they saw, abandoned their comrades, and fled the Islamic State. Yet their stories could be key to stopping the flow of foreign fighters, countering the group’s propaganda, and exposing its lies and hypocrisy.

  • U.S. defense agencies dominate federal synthetic biology research

    A new analysis finds the Defense Department and its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) fund much of the U.S. government’s research in synthetic biology, with less than 1 percent of total federal funding going to risk research. Between 2008 and 2014, the United States invested approximately $820 million dollars in synthetic biology research. In that time period, the Defense Department became a key funder of synthetic biology research. DARPA’s investments, for example, increased from near zero in 2010 to more than $100 million in 2014 — more than three times the amount spent by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

  • Can Iran’s rulers still use enemies abroad to rally nation?

    The rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran have routinely used external conflicts to divert public attention from domestic problems, deflect attacks, promote national cohesion, and repress their opponents. Democratic activists in Iran may hope that the signing of the international nuclear deal will curb the country’s regime from further militarizing the state and repressing the opposition, but it is more likely that Iran’s leadership will continue their contentious pattern, and continue their anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric. With the nuclear agreement or without it, the theocracy’s history suggests that its leaders are more likely to focus on external conflicts in order to shore up their power base, deflect attacks, divert attention from unresolved internal problems and repress demands for democracy.

  • Smart watches allow hackers to harvest users’ data

    They are the latest rage in jewelry and gadgetry, but like all computer devices, smart watches are vulnerable to hackers. Using a homegrown app on a Samsung Gear Live smart watch, researchers were able to guess what a user was typing through data “leaks” produced by the motion sensors on smart watches. The project, called Motion Leaks through Smartwatch Sensors, or MoLe, has privacy implications, as an app that is camouflaged as a pedometer, for example, could gather data from emails, search queries and other confidential documents.

  • UN inquiry to determine who is responsible for chemical attacks in Syria

    Russia has withdrawn its objections to a UN investigation into identifying the culprits responsible for chemical attacks in Syria, allowing a probe to begin, UN diplomats said Thursday. For the last two years, Russia had insisted that a series of UN investigative teams sent to Syria would be limited to finding out whether or not chemical weapons had been used, but would be barred from identifying who was responsible for launching them.

  • GOP caucus infighting stymies House vote on Iran deal

    The Senate is not likely to bring the Iran nuclear deal to the floor of the Senate for an up-or-down vote because forty-two Democrats have now announced their support for the deal. It now appears that the House will not vote on the Iran deal, either, but for a different reason: Infighting among House Republicans who oppose the deal. The more conservative members of the House GOP caucus say the Obama administration had not provided all the required information about the deal. Opponents of the deal insist it includes “secret side deals” about nuclear inspections, side deals which have not been revealed either to the public or to lawmakers. The critics say that the review act, which gave Congress 60-day window to debate and vote on the deal, has not been triggered on 19 July, as the administration insists, since the act required all the information and documents pertaining to the deal to be given to Congress. Since, they argue, not all the documents have been given to Congress, not only has the review act has not been triggered on 19 July – and cannot close on 17 September – but there should be not vote of approval or disapproval.

  • Russian-American admits to smuggling sensitive weapon tech to Russia

    Alexander Fishenko, 49, a Russian-American businessman, pleaded guilty yesterday (Wednesday) to charges of smuggling sensitive U.S. microelectronics to Russia. He was arrested in 2012 on allegations that he had shipped export-controlled electronics and computer chips which are used in radar and surveillance systems, missile guidance systems, and detonation triggers.

  • More significant CBP leadership changes: Possible reorganization

    Recently rocked by the largest scandal in its history, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) appears to be making significant personnel changes in recent months. There are also rumors of a major agency reorganization, rumors which have not been denied by agency leadership. Presumably such changes at CBP would be grounded in and address James F. Tomsheck’s allegations which find support in a number of government reports about significant problems at CBP. These institutional problems include increased employee violence, graft, and corruption as well as an institutional failure at CBP IA to investigate charges against its own employees.

  • Insider threats, organizational rigidity pose challenges for U.S. national security: Study

    U.S. national security faces rising challenges from insider threats and organizational rigidity, a Stanford professor says. A new study says that in the past five years, seemingly trustworthy U.S. military and intelligence insiders have been responsible for a number of national security incidents, including the WikiLeaks publications and the 2009 attack at Fort Hood in Texas that killed 13 and injured more than 30. The study’s author acknowledges the difficulties of learning lessons from tragedies like 9/11, the NASA space shuttle accidents, and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. She notes that policymakers tend to attribute failure to people and policies. While seemingly hidden at times, the organizational roots of disaster are much more important than many think, she added.

  • Upholding disarmament agreements with engineering

    Arms control agreements face a problem: how to ensure that countries with nuclear weapons abide by disarmament agreements. The linchpin of these agreements is being able to verify that the signers are following the rules — but the trick is for both sides, or a third party, to be able to police weapons in a way that doesn’t give out too much information about them, for example, how these weapons were built. An MIT project, called Zero Knowledge Warhead Verification, tackles this problem with a beam of light, a scrambler, and a detector.

  • Remains of two IRA “disappeared” found and identified

    Two bodies found in an Irish bog were confirmed by DNA tests to be the remains of Séamus Wright and Kevin McKee, two of the IRA’s “disappeared.” The two members of the Provisional IRA (PIRA) in west Belfast vanished in 1972, and were likely kidnapped, interrogated, then killed by the PIRA. Of the seventeen people killed by the IRA and then disappeared during the Northern Ireland Troubles, the remains of thirteen have been found and identified. Four people remain on the disappeared list.