Enemies See America As Vulnerable Prey

Our domestic tensions embolden our enemies.

Here is a sampling of some recent news abroad:

A Russian guard attacked a U.S. diplomatic official at the door to the American Embassy in Moscow, even as NATO leaders met to galvanize against the next act of Russian aggression.

…

Iran rebuffed United Nations warnings and defiantly boasted that it will continue testing ballistic missiles. German intelligence believes that Iran, empowered by the release of $100 billion in impounded cash, is violating its recent American-led nonproliferation deal in an effort to import nuclear bomb-making technology.

Obama Admin Brushes Off Intel Iran Is Buying Nuke, Missile Materials

The Obama administration is brushing aside new German intelligence reports indicating that Iran has accelerated its efforts to procure key nuclear materials, despite promises to end this behavior as part of last summer’s nuclear accord, according to comments by a U.S. official provided to the Free Beacon.

Germany’s internal intelligence agency concluded in a recent report that sources have witnessed “extensive Iranian attempts” to procure illicit materials, “especially goods that can be used in the field of nuclear technology,” according to the report. The report appears to show that Iran is not upholding its most critical commitments under the nuclear deal.

Islamic State’s online army is a Russian front, says German intelligence

A German intelligence report alleges that the so-called ‘Cyber Caliphate’, the online hacker wing of the Islamic State, is in fact a Russian front, ingeniously conceived to permit Moscow to hack Western targets without retaliation. The group calling itself Cyber Caliphate first appeared in early 2014, purporting to operate as the online wing of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), later renamed Islamic State. Today the Cyber Caliphate boasts a virtual army of hackers from dozens of countries, who are ostensibly operating as the online arm of the Islamic State. Their known activities include a strong and often concentrated social media presence, and computer hacking, primarily in the form of cyber espionage and cyber sabotage.

Report: Germany classified list of companies that helped build Syria’s CW stockpile

 

The weekly Der Spiegel said Berlin received the list from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that was assigned the destruction of the CW stockpile and facilities of President Bashar Assad in 2013. About 1,400 Syrians were said to have been killed in Assad’s CW attacks.

“Berlin immediately classified the list and has since kept it under lock and key,” Der Spiegel said. “The government says that releasing the names would ‘significantly impair foreign policy interests and thus the welfare of the Federal Republic of Germany.’”

Germany Bracing for Islamic Terror

Paris “Just the First Shot”

The offices of a German newspaper that republished satirical cartoons from Charlie Hebdo, a French magazine known for lampooning Islam, have been hit by arsonists.

No one was hurt in the attack on the Hamburger Morgenpost, which occurred in the early morning hours of January 11 and caused only minor damage.

…

The attack came a day after the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Agency (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA) has enacted a nationwide emergency plan in an effort to prevent Islamic terrorists from striking in Germany.

According to Der Spiegel, federal and state security agencies have been ordered to locate the whereabouts of up to 250 German Islamists and other “relevant persons” whose identities are known to counter-terrorism authorities. The magazine also reported that the BKA had evidence “that key European cities could be attacked at any time.”

Proposed for Killing

KABUL/BERLIN (Own report) – The German Bundeswehr and the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) are more deeply involved in extra-judicial killings of terror suspects in Afghanistan, than was previously known. According to reports published in the media during the final days of 2014, a German major general, who, today, is one of the defense minister’s closest advisors, had insisted in, at least one case, that ISAF “capture or neutralize” a suspect. Contrary to German intelligence agent’s false claims, cell phone data, that the BND has been passing on to US services on a regular basis, have been used to locate individuals for killer drone attacks. Extra-judicial killings are largely based on intelligence shared by western countries, including Germany, within the framework of the war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a focal point of the BND’s global activities. The German government has explicitly declared the assassination of “enemy combatants” – even outside combat zones – to be permissible.

NSA ‘in bed’ with German intelligence says US whistleblower Edward Snowden – and GCHQ operates a ‘full take’ data monitoring system

The fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden alleged on Sunday that the National Security Agency was “in bed together” with German intelligence despite claims by politicians in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition that they were shocked by the extent of American spying in Germany.

In an interview with Der Spiegel , Snowden claimed that the NSA provided German intelligence, with analysis tools to help the organisation monitor data flowing through Germany. “The NSA people are in bed together with the Germans,”” he told the magazine.

He added that the NSA’s foreign affairs directorate, which is responsible for relations with other countries, had set up a system whereby political leaders “could be insulated” from the backlash if spying became public and helped to play down how grievously they were “violating global privacy.”

North Korea tested Iranian warhead or “dirty bomb” in 2010 for $55m

German and Japanese intelligence sources Monday, March 5, confirmed – and qualified – to debkafile reports in the German Der Spiegel and Welt am Sonntag that Western intelligence had known for 11 months that at least one of North Korea’s covert nuclear tests in 2010 was carried out on an Iranian radioactive bomb or nuclear warhead.
Those sources report five facts are known for sure:

1. North Korea carried out two covert underground nuclear explosions in mid-April and around May 11 of 2010 equivalent to 50- 200 tonnes of TNT.

2. Two highly lethal heavy hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium,  typical of a nuclear fission explosion and producing long-term contamination of the atmosphere, were detected and analyzed by  Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBOTO) monitoring stations in South Korea, Japan and Russia.

3. The presence of tritium in one of the tests led several intelligence agencies watching North Korea’s nuclear program and its longstanding links with Iran and Syria to examine the possibility that Pyongyang had tested the internal mechanism of a nuclear warhead on Iran’s behalf.  This strongly indicated to German and Japanese intelligence that Iran had already developed the nuclear warhead’s outer shell and attained its weaponization.

4.  Another possibility examined was that North Korea had tested an Iranian “dirty bomb” – i.e. a conventionally detonated device containing nuclear substances. Tritium would boost its range, force and lethality.

This was one of the conclusions of atmospheric scientist Larsk-Erik De Geer of the Swedish Defense Research Agency in Stockholm, who spent a year studying the data collected by various CTBOTO stations tracking the North Korean explosions.

On February 3, De Greer published some of his findings and conclusions in Nature Magazine. His paper will appear in the April/May issue of the Science and Global Security Journal.

5. The Japanese and German sources found confirmation of their suspicions that North Korea had abetted Iran’s nuclear aspirations in three events:

Full article: North Korea tested Iranian warhead or “dirty bomb” in 2010 for $55m (DEBKAfile)