WarSclerotic

After Iran strike, Israel gets cyber unit – UPI.com.

TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 16 (UPI) — Israel’s military has set up a cyberdefense division, primarily against the Iranian threat, thus boosting the country’s cyberwar capabilities after it allegedly attacked Tehran’s nuclear program in 2010 with the Stuxnet virus and changed the face of warfare.

The Jerusalem Post reports that the new unit in the C4I Directorate — command, control, communications, computers and intelligence — is headed by an army colonel who formerly commanded Matzov, the Hebrew acronym for the Center for Encryption and Information Security.

That’s the unit previously responsible for protecting military networks and strategic state concerns such as water and electricity from cyberattack.

The addition of the cyberdefense division followed the announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in July of the creation of a National Cybernetic Task Force, believed to comprise at least 80 people, to defend Israel’s vital infrastructure from Internet-based strikes.

The division is expected to work closely with Israel’s expanding high-tech sector, one of the most advanced in the world, and its defense industry to develop systems to shield the economy and government from cyberattacks.

Little is known about the new unit, or indeed about Israel’s expanding cyberwar capabilities but it is widely believed that Israel has become the leading practitioner of cyberwarfare.

This stems from the ground-breaking use of the highly sophisticated Stuxnet computer virus against Iran, a strike widely attributed to Israel. The attack was detected in the Islamic Republic’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, 160 miles south of Tehran, in June 2010.

The virus reportedly attacked highly secure computers and manipulated the arrays of centrifuges, which do the enriching, to self-destruct.

It was a stunning blow to Iran’s contentious nuclear program, which Israel and the United States allege is intended to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran denies that.

Frank Rieger, a key member of the hacker group known as the Chaos Computer Club, calls the Stuxnet weapon “a digital bunker-buster.”

International cyber specialists reportedly tracked the virus through a maze of false Internet sites to Israel’s foreign intelligence service, the Mossad.

German newsmagazine Der Spiegel said Israeli sources familiar with the Stuxnet operation insist it was “a blue-and-white operation … a purely Israeli operation,” referring to Israel’s national colors.

The sources say that a secret unit of Israel’s Military Intelligence — most likely the highly classified Unit 8200 which traditionally has been responsible for signals intelligence — was responsible for programming much of the Stuxnet code.

Mossad did the rest and first unleashed the computer-killing virus June 22, 2009, against Iran, the report said. That was the first of three attacks that led to the sabotaged centrifuges at Natanz.

Iran has made a major effort to develop a cyberattack capability to retaliate for the extensive damage reportedly caused at Natanz, which apparently set back the nuclear program by several months.

It’s difficult to determine what progress the Iranians have made but in March, Gen. Ali Fazli, commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps’ paramilitary Basij organization, claimed it had launched attacks on Web sites of “the enemies.”

Yuval Diskin, the former head of Israel’s General Security Service, known as Shin Bet, said before he stepped down in April that the Israelis have detected what appeared to be several attempts to attack key infrastructure centers in the Jewish state.

“All over the world, including in Israel, there are cyberattacks,” Diskin said. “We can’t say for certain the attacks were against critical infrastructure but there are fingerprints and tracks that indicate maybe there were attempts and they were treated.

“Israel needs to grow in this field since this is something that’s happening today already — and it’s not waiting for tomorrow. This is a threat that’s already knocking on our door.”

As far as can be determined, this battle in cyberspace has been going on since 2004.

That’s when Israel revealed that the cryptologists with Unit 8200 had cracked an Iranian communications code that allowed the Israelis to read message traffic concerning Iran’s secret nuclear program.

It’s highly unusual for the Israelis — or anyone else, for that matter — to admit being able to decipher an adversary’s codes. But a recent analysis noted that “perhaps the Iranians stopped using the code in question, or perhaps the Israelis just wanted to scare the Iranians.”

Amb. Marc Ginsberg: Syria: Better Late Than Never or Too Little Too Late.

The ferocious battle for Syria, now in its fifth bloody month, appears to be reaching a decisive climax — this according to knowledgeable Middle East observers with whom I just met in Europe over the past couple of weeks.

Fortunately, albeit far too belatedly, after agonizing weeks of crippling and damaging hesitation, the Obama Administration finally dragged itself out of its self-imposed policy coma into championing global sanctions of Syria’s oil and gas industry exports — the most important source of foreign hard currency for the Assad regime other than Iranian handouts. Yet it failed to take an all-important decisive step to punish international companies doing business with Syria’s energy sector — yet another error of commission by the Administration which Congress was quick to pick up upon. The Administration self-congratulatory Syria sanctions policy is deemed “measured.” By smuggled social media accounts reflecting widespread Syrian opinion, its public prefers to call U.S. policy “bankrupt.”

Although full throttled U.S. leadership against Assad’s sources of revenue is welcomed, short of unlikely international direct military intervention against Assad, getting nations to stop purchasing Syrian crude is not going to be quick and easy nor guaranty a swift fall of the regime. Even British Prime Minister Cameron is not with the program. He refuses to join in sanctioning Syrian oil exports under the alibi that it could harm the Syrian people more than the regime.

Syria exports 148,000 barrels per day (at today’s prices that means Syria earns about $15 million each day from its declining exports). It adds up to enough to keep the Assad’s coffers sufficiently full to purchase arms from Russia — which continues to ship arms to Assad.

Also on the plus side, the Obama Administration is finally exerting a modicum of global leadership against Assad by trying to take charge of a dispiriting international response to the revolt. Backed up by a relatively hollow “President’s Statement” from the United Nations Security Council and angry accusations from Saudi Arabia, and other Arab nations against Assad, the United States has embraced this diplomatic cavalry charge to seek further international action against Assad — action it could have taken long ago without them.

Better late than never!

Ironically, in an odd juxtaposition to her own painful-to-hear tongue twisting on Syria, Secretary of State Clinton urged nations doing business with Syria to cut off trade and arms sales to the regime and “get on the right side of history.” Memo to Secretary Clinton: mostly because of an absence of clarity and paralyzed State Department leadership that convinced Assad he was “too big to fail” — the U.S. has been consistently on the wrong side of history since the revolt began in Syria.

Even if Assad were to survive, or be forced to go, the U.S. has lost precious credibility in Syria — particularly among the regime’s potential opposition successors — by permitting a questionable Libya policy to hijack an effective Syrian policy. Just because the White House fired before it aimed on Libya (and was bewitched politically as a result) was simply not good foreign policy to avoid leading on Syria — a nation with far more strategic implications for the U.S. than Libya ever will have for the U.S.

Even with these new sanctions, and a more tangible demonstration of policy creativity, the U.S. still has yet to throw in the towel with the devil it knows in Damascus. For the U.S. to get on the right side of history for itself — let alone with the Syrian people, it will have to do much more to help the disparate and divided Syrian opposition to unite and provide it desperately needed financial support — something it will not do yet.

Notwithstanding nearly universal disappointment — here at home and abroad with my colleagues in the administration — over their consequential failure of leadership on Syria, the real question is what will the Syrian people do in the weeks ahead, since they — not economic sanctions or any U.S. policy — will decide Assad’s fate?

That time may soon come.

In a quiet, but not so secret understanding with Ankara, Washington has hitchhiked itself onto yet another Assad lifeline by supporting Turkey’s last ditch diplomatic push providing Assad 15 days to get his reform act together (and by extension to gain the upper hand against the revolt), or face a more muscular response from a Turkish government that is actually positioned to possibly tip the scales against Assad.

More time translates into more days for Assad to militarily mop up Syria’s restive cities without any meaningful foreign action that could make that more difficult. And given news out of Syria, Assad’s military is using every minute to escalate its crackdown before Turkey’s ultimatum expires.

Consequently, all eyes are on whether Assad will break the back of the popular revolt militarily within 15 days and then promise and promote Potemkin-like reforms — this time at a the point of the gun barrel aimed at a dispirited Syrian opposition which faces the cruel realty that Assad’s forces are not about to turn against him. Having gained a potentially decisive victory throughout Syria’s second-tier cities under revolt, Assad may have the luxury of some breathing space to buy more time to crush his opponents on his terms, rather than be crushed by the tightening noose of international sanctions, Turkish recriminations, and a resilient opposition more certain of Assad’s demise.

So where does the popular revolt appear to be heading in the coming weeks?

There are two levels of cities in Syria: the two largest cities of Damascus and Aleppo. Most of the regime’s violent repression has been directed at Syria’s second-tier cities of Homs, Hama and now, a naval assault on the port city of Latakia on the Mediterranean.

So far, the assaults on Homs and Hama appear to have destroyed much of these cities and enabled the Syrian military to gain the upper hand in controlling their populations — for the time being at least. Demonstrations and killings are continuing, but on a smaller scale as a result of the exercise of this state-sponsored brute force — even during Ramadan.

Despite the terrible loss of life and repression, fissures in the regime foretelling an imminent implosion have not reached anything that resembles mortal danger to Assad.

Syrian security troops loyal to Assad (with the help of Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah troops) have been able to keep Damascus and Aleppo mostly under lock and key — aided by a Syrian business elite that is trying to have it both ways — keeping its options open by supporting both the regime and reaching out to the opposition.

Moreover, despite early anecdotal information trickling out of Syria of dissension and revolt in several divisions, there has been little in the way of open mutiny by the military against the regime. In fact, the military’s siege of Homs and Hama, and now Latakia and small towns across the nation have evidenced more cohesion and rank unity than many observers had initially predicted and which many had hoped would evaporate after the early tales of inflicted civilian atrocities trickled throughout their majority Sunni ranks.

Assad’s more ruthless brother, Maher — who commands Syria’s military and its security forces — has purged the military of anyone deemed a threat (purged = shot). And forces deemed absolutely loyal to the regime have been deployed to the field.

And as long as the Syrian opposition remains painfully divided — as it was in Iran — the business elites of Aleppo and Damascus will try to have their cake and eat it, too. Reaching out to the opposition while maintaining allegiance to Assad’s cronies. And as long as the ever-crucial mercantile community refuses to resolutely break with the regime, Damascus and Aleppo will remain more or less under Assad’s control since they have much sway over each city’s populations.

Consequently, by the end of August — through the long, hot mosque-instigated revolt — either Assad, with Iranian help, will have (at least temporarily) succeeded in breaking the back of the revolt, thus enabling Assad to humor Turkey and by extension, Washington by donning that ol reformer’s mask he so effectively wore with visiting westerners more or less on terms that do not constitute a surrender to his opponents, or Turkey will finally pull the plug and begin tangibly fostering more and more support for the opposition.

What seems to be emerging from this struggle given the tide of battle is likely a Syrian version of Iran’s post presidential-style repression. An opposition more or less beaten into submission and a seething Syrian population waiting for the next spark to turn on Assad after burying its dead. A stalemate without NATO intervention that will enable Assad to hang on, consolidate and regroup, and as is the Assad’s family signature ploy, pick off his enemies one by one.

Unlike the rebels in Libya, Syria’s civilians are mostly unarmed. Unlike their compatriots in Egypt, without mass outpourings in Aleppo and Damascus, the Syrian military seems to be slowly, street by street, replicating the tyranny of Assad’s father against any city that rose up against the regime.

This is not a scenario the Syrian people deserve, but it may be their short-term fate given the divisions inside and outside Syria and Turkey’s and Iran’s respective roles in deciding Assad’s fate.

I hope I am wrong, and that the people of Damascus and Aleppo, energized by the courage of their compatriots in Hama and Homs and their chagrin over Assad’s terror against their fellow citizens, finally take to the streets in defiant solidarity against the regime before Assad is able to buy the time he needs to consolidate his army’s field campaign. I hope the Syrians deny Assad the time he needs to turn the tide before Turkey’s ultimatum expires. Only then, will the dominoes begin to fall and the army breaks ranks.

Admittedly, it is a terrible prescription for Syrians to achieve their much deserved, liberty, freedom, and dignity.

Iran snipers in Syria as part of crackdown – Telegraph.

Iranian snipers have been deployed in Syria as part of an increasingly brutal crackdown on protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, according to a former member of the regime’s secret police.

Smoke rises in the city of Latakia following an attack by Syrian tanks and navy ships, killing 24 people

The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals, crossed the border into Turkey last week after being ordered to shoot to kill, bringing with him sickening details of increasingly desperate measures to end five months of demonstrations. He said he had beaten prisoners and fired on protesters in Damascus. At times during the past two months he was aware of Iranian troops – confirmed by senior officers – alongside his team in the Syrian capital.

“We knew they were from Iran because we were not allowed to speak to them and they were kept well away from us,” he told The Daily Telegraph in Yayladagi, the nearest town to the refugee camp where he now lives. “When we had operated with the Syrian army we would always mix with them and chat.” His account confirms other reports that Syria has turned to its closest ally for help in putting down the protests directed at the Assad family’s 41 years in power.

The ferocity of government operations has shocked international observers.

Tanks and snipers have been deployed to quell protests across the country during the holy month of Ramadan, even as the US and Arab states have called on Mr Assad to end the violence.

So far more than 1,700 people have reportedly been killed.

On Monday Syrian forces shelled residential districts in the Mediterranean port city of Latakia for a third straight day. At least 29 civilians, including a two-year-old girl have been killed, according to rights groups.

Spokesmen for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said a Palestinian refugee camp near the town had been shelled from the sea, emptying it of half its 10,000 residents. The organisation called on President Assad to stop the attack.

The bloodshed has forced thousands of people to cross the border from Syria into Turkey.

Among them last week was a 25-year-old officer with the Mukhabarat secret police, who described how officers were increasingly unhappy at being ordered to kill unarmed protesters.

“They were all feeling like me. They were all afraid like me but knew they would be killed if they left or if they refused orders,” he said.

Instead they tried to aim their shots in the air.

He also described bringing protesters – some as young as 13 – into police stations where they were beaten for the entertainment of senior officers.

The worst episode, he said, came in July when the secret police snatched nine women believed to be married to opposition leaders.

“The Mukhabarat stripped them and then made them walk through the streets,” he said. “It was just to make their husbands turn themselves in. Two days later they did.”

Now he faces an uncertain future. No one else in the refugee camp knows that he was once one of the men ordered to fire on protesters but he also knows that he faces death as a deserter if he were to return to Syria.

Iran and its close regional ally, the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah, are growing increasingly concerned at President Assad’s isolation and are doing all they can to bolster him as the Arab world starts to withdraw its support.

On Sunday, a senior religious figure, Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, issued a statement saying: “It is the duty of all Muslims to help stabilise Syria against the destructive plots of America and Israel.”

‘Thousands flee’ Latakia assault – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.

Syrian troops have kept up their assault on the coastal city of Latakia for a third day, reportedly killing three people and forcing thousands of residents, including many Palestinian refugees, to flee their homes.

Residents told Al Jazeera on Monday that the army was using heavy machine guns and tanks, and had rounded up many people in a sports stadium as they attempted to escape the city.

Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said 5,000 to 10,000 residents of a Palestinian refugee camp in the al-Ramel area of the city had been fleeing after the camp came under fire.

“As of 1pm (10:00 GMT), the army instructed all residents in southern and southeastern Latakia to evacuate”, Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh, reporting from the Jordanian side of the Jordan-Syria border, said.

According to activists, most people started fleeing to the heart of the city and there Syrian troops arrested many of them.

“They transported them on buses to the sports city stadium and there they’re being held captured, stripped of their IDs and mobile phones,” El-Shamayleh said.

She said residents called the assault the “most atrocious attack” since protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s government began five months ago.

The Syrian Revolution Co-ordinating Union, a grassroots activists’ group, said three people were killed by security forces on Monday, bringing the total killed since Saturday to at least 31 civilians

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said one of the three was killed after troops opened fire as a group of fleeing residents approached a checkpoint in the Ein Tamra district of Latakia.

“People are trying to flee but they cannot leave Latakia because it is besieged. The best they can do is to move from one area to another within the city,” a witness told Reuters.

‘Outright murder’

Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, on Monday urged Syria to immediately end its deadly crackdown, threatening it with unspecified “steps” if it failed to do so.

Davutoglu said the bloodshed must end “immediately and without conditions or excuses.”

“If the operations do not end, there would be nothing more to discuss about steps that would be taken,” he said, without saying what that action could include.

Meanwhile, the White House said the US was working with other countries to pressure Assad to end the “outright murder of his own people.”

“By his actions he [Assad] has demonstrated that he has lost legitimacy to lead,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters, adding that US President Barack Obama “has no doubt that Syria will be better off without him”.

“The Syrian people deserve a peaceful transition to democracy; they deserve a government that doesn’t torture them, arrest them and kill them. And we are looking, together with a broad array of international partners, to increase pressure on President Assad”.

Germany called for more European Union sanctions against Syria and urged the UN Security Council to discuss the government crackdown there again.

‘Listen to reason’

Meanwhile, neighbouring Jordan urged Syria to stop violence and start implementing reforms.

“Prime Minister Maaruf Bakhit today telephoned his Syrian counterpart Adel Safar and told him that violence must stop immediately,” the state-run Petra news agency reported.

“Bakhit said Syria should listen to reason and start implementing reforms.”

The government has justified its crackdown on the city by saying it is dealing with “terrorist” gangs.

On Sunday, official news agency SANA said troops were pursuing “gunmen using machine guns, hand grenades and bombs who have been terrorising residents in the al-Ramel district”.

But a military source quoted by the agency on Monday denied reports that the army had been using gunboats in the offensive, saying ships seen off the coast were carrying out routine tasks of protecting the coast and preventing weapons smuggling.

Elsewhere in the country, troops backed by tanks reportedly entered several towns in the central province of Homs, a flashpoint of demonstrations.

“The community of Holeh is under siege … The army is carrying out raids and arrests under the cover of heavy gunfire,” the SOHR said. The group said a sniper had killed an elderly man.

IAF strikes kill one Hamas operative, wound fi… JPost – Defense.

    The IAF struck inside the Gaza Strip early Tuesday morning, killing one armed operative and wounding five others, Hamas medical sources said.

They added that three Hamas operatives involved in firing rockets at Israel were hit in the first air strike, east of Gaza City, in a pre-dawn attack. One later died of his injuries, they said.

Three Palestinian civilians, among them a boy, were injured, the sources said, in a separate air strike that targeted a tunnel beneath Gaza’s border with Egypt of a type Israel says is used to smuggle in weapons.

The IDF Spokesman’s Office confirmed that  IAF struck five targets in the Gaza Strip. The statement added that the precision strikes were identified as hitting their targets.

It added that prior to the strikes, several terrorists were seen attempting to fire a rocket at Israel but were thwarted by the air force.

The military action came in response to an attack several hours earlier, when a Palestinian rocket fired from Gaza fell outside of Beersheba on Monday night, activating air raid sirens and sending residents fleeing for cover.

A Negev police spokeswoman said that the rocket fired from Gaza landed in open territory. A police response team identified the rocket impact zone.

No injuries or damages were reported.

Beersheba is located approximately 40 kilometers away from the Gaza Strip.

Last week, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza fired three mortar shells at the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council in the south overnight on Sunday.

The first shell exploded near a fence surrounding a kibbutz, damaging the structure. Two additional mortars exploded near a kibbutz. A rocket alert system was activated, sending residents fleeing for cover.

Due to the escalation in rocket fire from the Gaza Strip earlier in the month, Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided at the time to deploy an Iron Dome anti-rocket defense battery outside the southern city of Ashkelon.

Barak’s decision came after close to 30 rockets were fired into Israel since the beginning of July.