Our picksSpace Terrorism | Submarine Cable Security | Rethinking Ransomware Response, and more
· Analysis of IAEA Iran Verification and Monitoring Report
· Al-Qaeda Could Strike U.S. from Afghan Base Next Year, Spies Say
· Head of U.K.’s Space Directorate Warns of Space Terrorism
· Tech Firms Not Doing Enough to Fight Terrorism, Says Met Police Chief
· Corona Led to Largest Surface for Cyberterror Attacks Ever - Cyber Chief
· Boards Rethink Incident Response Playbook as Ransomware Surges
· The U.S. Should Get Serious about Submarine Cable Security
· The Counterterror War That America Is Winning
Analysis of IAEA Iran Verification and Monitoring Report(David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, and Andrea Stricker, Institute for Science and International Security)
This report summarizes and assesses information in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) quarterly safeguards report for September 7, 2021, Verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015), including Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Overall, the IAEA’s latest report shows Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear activities and steps to limit IAEA monitoring, while inspectors have a diminishing ability to detect Iranian diversion of assets to undeclared facilities. The IAEA is sounding an alarm to the international community accordingly.
Al-Qaeda Could Strike U.S. from Afghan Base Next Year, Spies Say (Chris Strohm, Bloomberg)
Al-Qaeda may be able to reconstitute itself in Afghanistan and be capable of orchestrating attacks inside the U.S. in one to two years, two senior U.S. intelligence officials said. “The current assessment probably, conservatively, is one to two years for al-Qaeda to build some capability to at least threaten the homeland,” Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said at an intelligence conference on Tuesday. “We’re thinking about ways to gain access back into Afghanistan with all kinds of sources and accesses,” Berrier said. “We are prioritizing that effort. We’ll continue to prioritize it. But we have to be careful to balance these very scarce resources.” U.S. intelligence agencies are already seeing activities by the terrorist group once led by Osama bin Laden to re-establish itself in Afghanistan, said CIA Deputy Director David Cohen, who agreed with the timeline of one to two years. Both intelligence leaders spoke at a summit Tuesday in the suburbs of Washington hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance and the nonprofit group AFCEA
