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For Years, the Voice Behind ISIS Propaganda Was a Mystery. Now a Canadian Faces Criminal Charges.  (Rachel Weiner, Washington Post)
A Canadian who U.S. prosecutors allege is behind influential English-language propaganda videos for the Islamic State has been brought to Virginia to be prosecuted. Mohammed Khalifa, 38, was captured by Kurdish forces in Syria in 2019. At that point, according to prosecutors, he had been with the Islamic State for six years. He started as a fighter, according to court documents, before becoming involved in the translation and dissemination of English-language propaganda. He ultimately led ISIS’s English-language media arm, prosecutors allege, whose output included videos, audio statements and an online magazine. Prosecutors say Khalifa narrated over a dozen ISIS recruitment videos, including two of the group’s most influential efforts at luring Westerners: “Flames of War: Fighting Has Just Begun,” in 2014, and “Flames of War II: Until the Final Hour,” in 2017. In the videos, according to court records, Khalifa encouraged supporters to try to join the Islamic State abroad or, if they could not, to launch attacks in their home countries. One video included a voice recording of the man who declared his allegiance to ISIS before committing a massacre at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando in 2016.

New Emergency Cyber Regulations Lay Out “Urgently Needed” Rules for Pipelines but Draw Mixed Reviews  (Aaron Schaffer and Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post)
The government in July issued emergency rules to strengthen the cybersecurity of the nation’s most important energy pipelines in a bid to prevent a repeat of the Colonial Pipeline shutdown earlier this year that sparked massive fuel shortages and gasoline panic-buying.
The regulations are an acknowledgment that the traditional voluntary approach to cybersecurity in critical industries was not working, said some lawmakers and analysts. But the rules, industry officials and some analysts said, were written in such a way that implementing them could hamper pipeline reliability.

In a Surge of Military Flights, China Tests and Warns Taiwan  (Chris Buckley and Amy Qin, New York Times)
For two straight days, Beijing sent a record number of planes near the island, Taiwan said, a display of strength that underscored Chinese demands for unification.

How to Adapt to Extreme Weather  (Andrew Freedman, Axios)
With climate shock waves set to roil communities with increasing frequency and severity, an urgent task facing us all is to build up resilience measures to withstand these events.
It’s too late to stop extreme weather from increasing even as emissions are reduced, so all we can do is adapt to it. But there are strategies that you — and your community — can take to become better prepared.

Behind the Crypto Broker Accused of Enabling Ransomware Hackers  (Kartikay Mehrotra and Olga Kharif, Bloomberg)
A cryptocurrency broker that the Biden administration considers a key cog in the recent ransomware epidemic is legally registered in the Czech Republic but doesn’t appear to have an office there. It may be operating out of Moscow’s tallest skyscraper despite its not being listed at the address. It earned the distinction last month of being the first crypto exchange to be blacklisted by the U.S. as governments try to stem further attacks. And while it denies any part in the recent spate of cyber crimes, experts say it’s a prime example of a shadowy corner of the industry that has allowed hackers to thrive by giving them the means to launder millions of dollars in illicit digital proceeds through “nested” middlemen that tap larger exchanges to process transactions.

Wanted: A Nuclear Deterrence Strategy That Works  (Peter Huessy, National Interest)
U.S. conventional deterrent strategy assumes no use of nuclear force. The United States has to strengthen its nuclear deterrent capability to ensure that threshold is never broken.

The CSS and ADL Form Partnership to Improve Safety on the Ground for Jewish Institutions  (ADL)
The Community Security Service (The CSS) and ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) announced today the forging of a partnership centered around improving the safety of the Jewish community through intelligence, information sharing and security training for Jewish volunteers.
The partnership will connect subject matter experts from ADL’s Center on Extremism (COE) with The CSS’s national network of over 5,000 trained security volunteers – who help protect hundreds of Jewish institutions and events across the country – to improve volunteers’ awareness of the latest manifestations of antisemitism and extremism. 

The War on Terror and its Opportunity Costs  (Deseri Tsepetis, National Interest)
Some of the more profound and often overlooked effects of the War on Terror are on U.S. foreign policy, including U.S. relations towards Iran.