Bomb kills dozens in Kabul; NSA/Cyber commander on the hot seat; Besieged Aleppo is out of hospitals; Russia vows to stop NATO expansion; and just a bit more...
A suicide bomber has killed at least 28 people and wounded another 45 this morning in an attack on a Shiite mosque in the Afghan capital of Kabul, AP reports. The Taliban have denied responsibility for the attack, according to CNN—which leaves the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State group as one of the main suspects. And on this note, Reuters writes, “Already there had been two major recent attacks on Shi’ite targets in Kabul, both claimed by Islamic State.”
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a suspected drone strike killed two alleged ISIS fighters in eastern Nangarhar province, Afghanistan’s Pajhwok News reports this morning.
Eight more suspected ISIS fighters were also killed last week in Nangarhar, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Sunday: “A spokesman for the Nangarhar provincial governor said Mullah Bozorg, a leader of the IS group in Afghanistan, was killed along with seven fighters late on November 18.”
For a little context: “IS militants have been active in Nangarhar, where they have seized pockets of territory in the past two years,” RFE/RL writes. “The group has recently spread to the neighboring provinces of Kunar and Zabul, located along the porous border with Pakistan... The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Army General John Nicholson, said in September that there are up to 1,300 IS militants in the country who receive money, guidance, and communications support from IS leaders in Syria and Iraq. He said most IS fighters were former members of the Pakistani Taliban, an Al-Qaeda-linked militant group fighting against Islamabad.” More on that, here.
NSA Director, Adm. Mike Rogers, is on the hot seat—but so is Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The latter two have until COB today to give Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, dates for when they can testify before Nunes’ committee to discuss a Washington Post report Saturday stating Carter and Clapper wanted Rogers removed from his post atop the NSA and Cyber Command—with Carter and Clapper going so far as to send a letter to the White House saying as much back in October.
So what’s their problem with Rogers? “Carter has concerns with Rogers’s performance, officials said. The driving force for Clapper, meanwhile, was the separation of leadership roles at the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, and his stance that the NSA should be headed by a civilian.”
And here’s why it suddenly became news: “Rogers is being considered by President-elect Donald Trump to be his nominee for director of national intelligence to replace Clapper as the official who oversees all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies,” the Post reported. “In a move apparently unprecedented for a military officer, Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled to New York to meet with Trump on Thursday at Trump Tower. That caused consternation at senior levels of the administration.”
Also buried in the story: a previously undisclosed breach of cyber tools in the summer of 2015.
Roger’s reax to the firestorm: “I’m not going to go down that road,” he said at the Halifax International Security Forum. But then he added, “I’m accountable for my actions.” U.S. News’ Paul Shinkman has more from Roger’s appearance at Halifax, here.
A kind of bipartisan momentum is building for PEOTUS Trump to select retired Gen. James Mattis has the new SecDef, Bloomberg’s Eli Lake reported this weekend. “Democrats and Republicans, NeverTrump and NeverHillary, the alt-right and the wonky cucks of the GOP all agree: James Mattis for Secretary of Defense. So far, the swamp looks like it will get its wish. Mattis visited Trump Saturday in New Jersey and Republican sources are chattering that he is now the front-runner to be the civilian leader of the world’s greatest military.” That, here.
Trump himself, on Mattis: He’s “a true general’s general.”
Support for Mattis may not be entirely bipartisan. A reader sends this link to remind folks of one of Mattis’s decisions not to send a rescue team to U.S. troops under fire in an accidental bombing in Afghanistan back in November 2001—at least until specifics on the ground could be more clearly understood. Story, here.
Could a former SOUTHCOM commander, retired Gen. John Kelly, be making an appearance in the Trump cabinet? Marine Corps Times joins the speculation game with that one, here.
And Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., wants no speculation at all when it comes to the U.S. military reviving torture tactics under a Trump administration, Politico reported Saturday. McCain, speaking from Halifax: “I don’t give a damn what the president of the United States wants to do. We will not waterboard. We will not torture people … It doesn’t work.”
McCain would also like to remind us that he has a plan for Syria, Defense News reported from Halifax: “We need a no-fly zone and we can enforce not an entire no-fly zone over the entire country, but a no-fly zone which would be protective and it would take some American troops on the ground and we can succeed in at least protecting some of the refugees and we can use it as a place to arm and train and equip modern forces. It can be done,” McCain said.
He also had some input for the plan to retake the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria: The U.S. would need “about a 100,000 force, comprised of 10,000 American troops and 90,000 troops from allies and other nations.” More here.
In Syria this weekend, government-allied troops have made “a fast-moving advance” on rebel-held positions in the city of Aleppo, The Telegraph reports this morning: “Government forces backed by Iranian and Russian troops and fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah have penetrated the eastern part of the Masakan Hanano neighbourhood, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor. This neighbourhood is a keystone for eastern Aleppo: the first to fall to rebels in 2012, its location makes it a gateway for control of the eastern part of the city.”
If you’re exhausted reading about all the hospitals that have been bombed in Aleppo, our apologies, but here’s one more: “There are currently no hospitals functioning in the besieged area of the city,” the World Health Organization said in a statement on Sunday.
From Defense One
How Trump Will Fight ISIS Worries Top House Armed Services Democrat // Kevin Baron: HASC’s Rep. Adam Smith, in an interview on C-SPAN, challenged Trump’s incoming team to produce a national security strategy that doesn’t alienate the U.S. military’s Muslim partners fighting terrorism.
Donald Trump’s Choice for National Security Adviser Has One Priority: Combatting ‘Radical Islamic Terrorism’ // Krishnadev Calamur: Michael Flynn is also known for his long military career and his unceremonious exit from the Defense Intelligence Agency.
How to Get the Market to Make Secure IoT Devices // Frank Konkel: New rules for government purchases might be the fastest way to make sure new internet-connected devices don’t join botnets.
Trump’s CIA Director Wants to Return to a Pre-Snowden World // Kaveh Waddell: He’s called for a ‘fundamental upgrade’ to U.S. spying powers.
Welcome to the Monday edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. On this day in 1916, the largest ship lost in World War I, the 48,000-ton hospital ship HMHS Britannic, is sunk by a naval mine. (Send your friends this link: http://get.defenseone.com/d-brief/. And let us know your news: the-d-brief@defenseone.com.
Russia is back to its bluster: Putin has vowed “countermeasures” to stop NATO’s expansion, WaPo reports off a tight-lipped TV appearance from the Russian president this morning in Moscow. “Hours before the broadcast, Russia said it had deployed mobile coastal defense missiles to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave wedged between Lithuania and Poland. In October, Putin stationed nuclear-capable cruise missiles in Kaliningrad, further arming a region already bristling with weaponry on both sides.”
For what it’s worth: Take a look at this map illustrating U.S. and Russian troops near NATO nations, via the Heritage Foundation’s Luke Coffey.
Along with those Iskandar missiles in Kaliningrad, Russian state media said Moscow will deploy its S-400 air defense system at about the same location. More here.
Apropos of nothing: Cuba’s military has been showcasing its gear in a recent exercise. Catch imagery of a coastal missile defense system here and here; various aircraft here and here; naval systems here; and a defensive tunnel system here.
“Climate change is real: Just ask the Pentagon” is the headline on an L.A. Times report that surveys the military’s efforts to cope with “Rising sea levels and temperatures [that] have forced it to rebuild or relocate roads, housing, air fields and other vulnerable facilities damaged by mudslides in Hawaii, floods in Virginia, drought in California and thawing permafrost in Alaska.” The Pentagon also anticipates stress on the world’s populations will increasingly undermine security environments around the globe.
“We see the rising sea levels and flooding events,” said Capt. Dean VanderLey, who oversees Navy infrastructure in the mid-Atlantic region. “We have a responsibility to prepare for the future. We don’t have the luxury of just burying our heads in the sand.”
Trump, of course, has described climate change as a Chinese hoax, and In June, Republican members of Congress barred the Defense Department from “spending money to evaluate how climate change would affect military training, combat, weapons purchases and other needs.”
EOD teams to guard DJT property before and during the inauguration. Trump’s swearing-in will be the “biggest event” for the military’s bomb squads in 2017, “requiring roughly 170 to 200 EOD teams from all the services,” Military.com reports. And even before the Jan. 20 event, a Florida-based Air Force team will be sent to protect Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
And finally: Keep those A-10s flying carefully and safely; not buzzing Charlotte, N.C., at 500 feet. A preliminary report by the Federal Aviation Administration into the August flyover of four A-10s from the 74th Fighter Squadron at Moody Air Force Base finds that the jets flew over downtown Charlotte and the Bank of America stadium at just 500 feet, half the altitude permitted without a waiver. That, from Fox23 Charlotte, here. And watch a quick video of the unauthorized flyby, here.