After Orlando; Af-Pak flare-up; USAF loses decades of computer files; Put the X-47B back to work; and a bit more...
SecDef Carter: Orlando should “steel everyone’s resolve.” The Orlando attack is a homegrown and homeland affair, and both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump responded (in part) with calls for more bombing of ISIS (on top of the continuous bombing the U.S. already has been doing for nearly two years). Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday, on his way to NATO headquarters in Brussels, “It certainly should further steel everyone’s resolve to defeat ISIL in its parent tumor in Iraq and Syria.” Carter said U.S. military intelligence contributes to the same pool of intelligence used by DNI, FBI and others to determine any links of domestic shooters to ISIS or other overseas groups, but declined to say further how much that helped in this case.
Mosul pincer attack on pace: Carter said the (slow) squeeze on Mosul first envisioned six months ago is moving as planned. “That continues to proceed at pace, and those forces continue to move in the way that was anticipated.” From the southeast and southwest, forces in Makhumr and Karia West, and “the two brigades also trained and equipped by us approaching from the KRG territory and other Kurdish-controlled territory in the north.” Carter said Iraqi leaders making progress in Fallujah have assured him they will not have to peel any forces off the Mosul operation.
NATO is sending four fully armed battalions to remind Russia of its love—NATO expects this week to approve a plan to place four new “robust multinational battalions” of troops on rotation at Russia’s doorstep, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday. “We don’t seek confrontation with Russia. We don’t want a new Cold War,” he insisted, opening the two-day meeting of defense ministers. Three of the battalions, each made up of roughly 1,000 troops, will be fielded by the U.S., UK, and Germany. The fourth country is TBD, officially. They will go to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, Stoltenberg has previously said, in addition to a “land element” brigade in Romania to cover NATO’s southeastern flank.
The four battalions are in addition to a list of previous NATO force increases that Carter ticked off on the plane ride into Brussels, including: a Stryker brigade combat team, or BCT; an airborne BCT, and armored BCT, and all the equipment for an additional armored BCT, prepositioned in Europe for troops to drop in on in case of war.
(ICYMI: An arms buildup alone won’t keep the Baltics safe, but a parallel Cold War-style diplomatic track just might, argues Ulrich Kühn of Germany’s Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy.)
Police outside Paris rescued the 3-year-old son of a police chief after “a man convicted for terrorist offences and claiming allegiance to the Islamic State stabbed [the policeman] to death in front of his house outside Paris, then killed his partner who also worked for the police,” The Guardian reports. “The 42-year-old police commander was in plain clothes when he was stabbed to death as he arrived home at around 8.30pm on Monday night in a quiet residential area of Magnanville, north-west of Paris. The attacker then entered the house and held hostage the commander’s partner – who also worked in the local police administration – and the couple’s three-year-old son... Shortly afterwards loud detonations were heard as police stormed the house and killed the assailant. They found the woman dead and rescued the couple’s son alive.”
The assailant—a 25-year-old who had reportedly streamed his attack on Facebook Live—also had a list of additional targets (including “rappers, journalists, police officers and public personalities”) when his body was recovered by police, AP reports this morning.
The attacker “was sentenced in 2013 to three years in prison for recruiting fighters for jihad in Pakistan,” AP adds in another twist of the knife for intelligence officials facing greater scrutiny across the globe to stop such attacks before they happen.
And in the Philippines, Robert Hall, a second Canadian held hostage by the ISIS-aligned group, Abu Sayyaf, has been beheaded after a deadline for ransom payment passed, the government in Manila confirmed this morning. The first Canadian, John Ridsdell, was beheaded in late April.
Back stateside, Republican presidential contender Donald Trump took a rhetorical swipe at President Obama, blaming him for allowing the Orlando shooting, while maintaining his sharp image contrast with Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Trump’s latest divisive remarks were delivered in a speech “pulsating with tough talk that will likely please his supporters,” CNN reported, Trump “claimed Clinton wanted to disarm Americans and let Islamic terrorists slaughter them, while seeming to overinflate the number of Syrian refugees and insinuating the perpetrator of the Orlando attack was a foreigner.”
He also “renewed his call for a ban on Muslim migration into the United States—and extended it to cover all nations with a history of terrorism… Hinting at a huge expansion of presidential power, he vowed to impose such a system by using executive orders.”
Trump’s reaction is more or less exactly what ISIS wants, David Rothkopf notes at Foreign Policy: “With his fear-mongering, hate-speech, and un-American ideas, the GOP presidential candidate is emerging as the No. 1 threat to U.S. national security.” Read that, here.
Clinton, meanwhile, has called for a “surge” in U.S. intelligence capabilities, advocating increased “pressure U.S. technology companies to help intelligence agencies disrupt violent plots,” Reuters reports. “While Clinton did not detail what her effort would entail, she said she wants technology companies to be more cooperative to government requests for help in countering online propaganda, tracking patterns in social media and intercepting communications.” That here.
From Defense One
Computer crash wipes out years of Air Force investigation records. Fraud and abuse investigations dating back to 2004 vanished when a Lockheed Martin-run database became corrupted, service officials said. Global Business Editor Marcus Weisgerber and Tech Editor Patrick Tucker report with fresh details overnight, here.
How U.S. counterterrorism funds ended up in the Orlando terrorist’s pocket. The country spends billions a year on counterterrorism, with generally poor oversight. Tucker again, here.
Put the X-47B back to work — as a tanker. Before the U.S. Navy spends another billion dollars on prototype UAVs, it should wring more lessons from its existing fleet. From Center for a New American Security’s Jerry Hendrix, here.
Welcome to the Tuesday edition of The D Brief, by Ben Watson, Bradley Peniston, and Kevin Baron. On this day in 1777, the Continental Congress adopted the Stars & Stripes as the country’s official flag. Send your friends this link: http://get.defenseone.com/d-brief/. And let us know your news: the-d-brief@defenseone.com.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are inching toward war. “Firing between Pakistani and Afghan forces first broke out on Sunday at the crossing, about 45 km (28 miles) west of Peshawar, over the construction of a new border post on the Pakistani side,” Reuters reports. Now, we learn that “a Pakistani army officer died [this morning] after being shot by Afghan forces in a border clash, Pakistan's military said, a development likely to ratchet up tension between the neighbors who sources said were beefing up troop numbers on either side.”
You stay over there. “Afghanistan summoned the Pakistani ambassador on Tuesday to register its protest at the violence, Afghanistan's foreign ministry said. Pakistan had similarly summoned the Afghan charge d'affaires in Islamabad on Monday, the Pakistani foreign office said. The Pakistani army had moved heavy weaponry and additional troops to the Afghan border on Monday night, said Pakistani security officials, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the media. On Monday, an Afghan border police commander also confirmed that reinforcements had been deployed to the Afghan side of the border.” Read the rest, here.
A second U.S. carrier—the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower—has entered the busy waters of the Mediterranean. The Eisenhower “will relieve the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group which later this month heads back to the United States after an extended eight-month deployment” that included strikes against ISIS from the Med since June 3.
The U.S. Navy’s line: “The Navy said the presence of two carrier strike groups in the Mediterranean showed the U.S. commitment to safety and security, while sending ‘a strong message of support to our allies and partners in Europe.’”
Also of note: “The move coincides with NATO military exercises across eastern Europe and Turkey that may raise tensions with Russia. U.S. officials say Russia is operating warships and submarines in the Mediterranean and plans its own military exercises in coming weeks.” More here.
U.S. Apache attack helicopters were used against ISIS near Mosul, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday.
And in Syria—in particular, the city of Azaz, north of Aleppo—Kurds from the Rojava region (in the northwest) are not jumping at the chance to work with Kurds from the east. Those eastern Kurds, part of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, are working their way across ISIS-held turf in Raqqa governorate. More on the tangled business of finding a good partner in a terrible conflict, here.
Uganda is done with Kony-hunting: Two years ago, in the wake of international outcry over violence done by the Lord’s Resistance Army and its commander Joseph Kony, the African Union declared its intention to respond by creating a 5,000-person force. Wall Street Journal reports: “The force was intended to be supplied by all affected nations—Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan—but only Ugandan troops supported by around 150 U.S. military advisers have been actively involved.” State Department: “With U.S. support…the Ugandan military has removed four of the LRA’s top five most senior and notorious commanders from the battlefield...During that time the number of people killed by the LRA has dropped by over 90%.” But the news is a blow to the Central African Republic, which is already reeling from other domestic insurgencies. Read more, here.
This evening: Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus will be the guest of honor at a Sunset Parade at the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial). The event will also honor women who have served in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps and will be hosted by the Marine Corps Commandant, Gen. Robert Neller. It starts at 7 p.m. EDT. More details here.