The cyber war on ISIS; More US troops to Iraq?; Syrian ceasefire, not so much; What’s broken on F-35 now; and a bit more.
The U.S. is mulling more American troops for Iraq’s Mosul offensive, Ash Carter said this morning during his third trip to Baghdad as defense secretary. Other ideas reportedly on the table include “more airstrikes, cyberattacks and American troops on the ground,” the Associated Press reports from Baghdad.
About those cyber attacks: they are “far more serious than what the president laid out in his bland description” last week, The Daily Beast reports. They include such things as “implanting viruses in terrorists’ computers, and mining the machines to launch real-world strikes,” write Shane Harris and Nancy Youssef, who put it all in context, here.
Back to Carter’s trip: A senior defense official told Stars and Stripes that increased U.S. troop level “recommendations would likely be for smaller additions of specific forces the U.S. thinks will help the Iraqi forces campaign against the Islamic State,” but no additional details were offered.
“We are not looking for a big footprint and the Iraqis certainly will be supportive of things that are directly connected to capabilities that they feel their soldiers need do the fight,” the nameless official said. “That’s what we saw with Taqqadum...the base outside of Ramadi that helped us help them take back Ramadi.”
Also on Carter’s docket: a meeting “with Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the top U.S. military commander for the Islamic State fight, as well as a number of Iraqi leaders including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi. He also is expected to speak by phone with the president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani.”
Carter’s drop-in comes just two days before U.S. President Barack Obama begins what the AP calls his international farewell “damage control” tour with a private meeting with King Salman, Saudi Arabia’s 80-year-old monarch, in Riyadh: “When Obama lands in Riyadh on Wednesday for a Persian Gulf summit, he’ll be met by leaders roiled by his recent public complaints about global ‘free riders’ and harboring deep distrust of his dealings with Iran and his posture in Syria. Before heading on to what will likely be valedictory visits to Great Britain and Germany, the White House will be tasked with providing some measure of reassurance to a set of allies that remain critical of U.S. counterterrorism goals — even as they increasingly look to his successor.” The New York Times digs into the somewhat fraught recent history of U.S.-Saudi relations—laying out U.S. and Saudi desires, along with a brief detour into how the relationship turned somewhat sour during Obama’s time in office—here.
So much for the ceasefire: From Latakia to Homs, Hama to Aleppo—Syria is busy with offensives this morning after rebels “announced a new battle against government forces which they said was a response to violations” of the cessation of hostilities agreement from late February, Reuters reports. “In Latakia’s northern countryside, a number of insurgent groups launched a fierce attack on government forces and their allies in early morning and had by midday made advances...In Hama, insurgents had almost completely taken over the town of Khirbat al-Naqus in the strategic Ghab plain” and “in northern Homs province heavy government airstrikes killed four people, and said the death toll was expected to rise with more people wounded.” More here.
For your eyes only: It’s the stuff of apocalyptic films, but here’s what a drive through Homs looked like a month ago.
What’s broken on F-35 now. The most import line in the GAO’s new report on the Lightning II appears on page 1: problems with the $16.7 billion Autonomic Logistics Information System, or ALIS, are severe enough that “it could take the entire F-35 fleet offline” if it were to fail—because there is no back up.
The good news is the Pentagon says that the jet can fly without ALIS for more than 30 days in a pinch. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker put the question to one official affiliated with the program (who asked not to be named). The official said explicitly “no,” the problems outlined in the report would not ground the fleet. “We welcome their oversight. But we’re in the trenches. There were no surprises in that report,” he said. “They get their data from us.” Read the rest, here.
And speaking of aircraft—Russian jets are keeping up their antagonism toward U.S. military equipment in the Baltics. This time it involved one of Moscow’s Su-27s doing barrel rolls over the top of an RC-135 and it occurred late last week, Stripes reports.
“The Su-27 performed erratic and aggressive maneuvers…More specifically, the Su-27 closed within 50 feet of the wing-tip of the RC-135 and conducted a barrel roll starting from the left side of the aircraft, going over the top of the aircraft and ended up to the right of the aircraft,” a spokesman from U.S. European Command said.
Russia’s defense ministry pushed back on that narrative, “telling CNN that the Russian fighter responded to an unidentified aircraft flying toward the Russian border and that the Su-27 ‘performed strictly in accordance with the international regulations on the use of airspace.’” More here.
From Defense One
Join Defense Secretary Ash Carter and some of the brightest minds in military and consumer technology to discuss the future of innovation and national security at the first-ever Defense One Tech Summit on Friday, June 10, at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Reserve your early seat, here.
How the Senate encryption bill resembles Chinese law (and how it does not). For one thing, it would bring U.S. jurisprudence into greater harmony with China. Tucker reports, here.
Global defense spending is getting murkier. Many of the governments that are spending more on their militaries are also the least transparent, writes Transparency International’s Hilary Hurd, here.
The hell after ISIS. Even as the militant group loses ground in Iraq, many Sunnis say they have no hope for peace. One family's story shows why. By The Atlantic’s Anand Gopal, here.
The Legacy of Obama's ‘Worst Mistake.’ It's not just in Libya—the last 15 years of U.S. military interventions has revealed a troubling gap in the way America goes to war. From The Atlantic’s Dominic Tierney, here.
China’s latest bizarre propaganda videos use Batman and Mr. Bean to explain state secrets. The five videos try to describe two laws that lay out the party’s stance on national security. They get very bizarre very quickly. Via Quartz, here.
Welcome to the Monday edition of The D Brief, by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. On this day in 1988, the U.S. retaliated for the mining of USS Samuel B. Roberts by sinking two Iranian warships. Send your friends this link: http://get.defenseone.com/d-brief/. And let us know your news: the-d-brief@defenseone.com.
The week ahead on the Hill: U.S. lawmakers will take up the White House’s nomination for the new commander of American forces in Korea, Gen. Vincent Brooks; as well as Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti’s nom to lead U.S. European Command. Also on the schedule for the week: obstacles in the way of defense innovation; Navy and Marine Corps aviation; and a slew of defense authorization bill mark-ups. More from Military Times’ Leo Shane III, here.
And here are three priorities for the defense bill mark-ups that loom ahead, as laid out by the Heritage Foundation’s Justin Johnson.
Beijing’s navy sends another military jet to one of its man-made islands in the South China Sea, AP reports, “in what is believed to be the first openly acknowledged mission of its kind.”
A bit more: “A brief statement on the ministry’s website said the plane was on patrol when it was diverted to Fiery Cross Reef on Sunday morning to pick up three injured construction workers. The plane then flew to Sanya on China’s southernmost island province of Hainan where it landed at Fenghuang International Airport, the ministry said. Details about the plane and where it was based were not given, although a photo accompanying the report showed a four-propeller Y-8 transport being met by an ambulance.”
News of the fixed-wing’s arrival comes shortly after a U.S. defense official told Stars and Stripes last week that China had sent “16 Shenyang J-11 advanced fighter aircraft to Woody Island on April 7.”
U.S. Marines are helping with disaster relief ops after Japan’s quake. “At least four MV-22 Ospreys — with four others on standby — have joined the relief effort [in the southern part of the country], according to a news release distributed by the U.S. military on Sunday,” Military Times reported Sunday. “The aircraft are assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265, which is part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.”
If you’re just tuning in now: “Ospreys are capable of flying like helicopters and airplanes. They are used to haul people, ground vehicles and other heavy equipment. Typically, each aircraft has two pilots and two crew chiefs, who oversee the passenger cabin, and help to load or offload equipment and supplies while on the ground.” More here.
Staggering death toll in Ethiopia as South Sudanese gunmen from the Murle, a tribe from South Sudan based in the eastern Jonglei region, killed “around 140 people and kidnapped a number of others in a cross-border raid” on Friday, Agence France-Presse reports. “They attacked the Nuer tribe, one of the two main ethnic groups in South Sudan, but who also live across the border in Ethiopia.” More on the tribal and warring dynamics there, here.
The Afghan war is becoming less lethal—but that also means more Afghans are getting wounded from the fighting, the UN says in a new report on civilian casualties in that conflict. “The United Nations mission in Afghanistan documented 600 civilian deaths and 1,343 wounded in the first three months of 2016,” NYTs reported Sunday. “While the death toll fell 13 percent from the same period last year, the number of wounded increased 11 percent, the report said, with a high rise among children.”
Adds Reuters: “At least 600 civilians have been killed in fighting so far this year, with another 1,343 wounded, U.N. human rights investigators said on Sunday, with urban warfare causing a spike in casualties among women and children.”
As far as attribution: “The report blamed the insurgents for 60 percent of the casualties, and forces on the government side for 19 percent.”
Also worth noting: “[D]eaths caused by pro-government forces were up sharply from last year — roughly 70 percent higher over the same period. The deaths caused by government forces, put at 127 over the first three months of this year, were mostly caused by explosive weapons, including mortars, rockets and grenades.”
The first three months of fighting this year has also sent more than 81,000 citizens fleeing from their homes across 23 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, including the “northeastern province of Baghlan, where Taliban attacks have increased, was at the top of the chart, with 25,000 people displaced. A combined total of more than 20,000 people were displaced in the southern provinces of Oruzgan and Helmand.” More here.
Lastly today: It has finally happened: a drone has collided with a passenger airliner. And it happened on Sunday in London, or at least that’s what police believe took place after an object “struck the front of the Airbus A320,” the BBC reports. “The plane [with 132 passengers and five crew] was headed from Geneva, Switzerland, to London’s Heathrow Airport when the pilot said he thought a drone had struck the aircraft,” CNN adds after input from London Metropolitan Police.