Exodus from Aleppo; ISIS body counts; Congress, Trump on collision course over Russian election hacking; A peek into JSOC; and just a bit more...
Exodus from Aleppo. The last few blocks in Aleppo are being cleared of rebels by Syrian allied army troops, who claim to have retaken 90 percent of eastern Aleppo, although rebels say that percentage is closer to 60 while they hold on to a dozen or so neighborhoods in the east, Reuters and AP report.
Russia says more than 8,000 people have fled the formerly rebel-held eastern half of the city in the past 24 hours. “The exodus came a day after Russia announced that the Syrian army was suspending combat operations to allow for the evacuation of civilians from besieged rebel-held districts, but residents and medics inside eastern Aleppo said there was no letup in the bombardment,” AP reports.
The U.S. has been seemingly at a loss for what to do about Aleppo, at least in public. Russia is offering its own narrative, accusing U.S. officials of dragging out peace talks and of taking “strange” and contradictory positions ahead of talks scheduled for Saturday in Geneva. More on that tussle, here.
President Obama may have quietly opened the door a bit to arm more factions in Syria, if those groups are determined to be “essential to the national security interests of the United States,” the International Business Times reports this morning. Grain of salt here, since of the three other reports we’re seeing on this, two are from Russian state-run media. The other is from The Independent, here.
Here’s one from left field: “A group of Berlin-based activists is currently planning to…march on foot across the European continent to the Turkish-Syrian border, and thence onward to the besieged center stage of the 21st century’s deadliest conflict” in Aleppo, The Daily Beast reports, calling it “suicidal.” That, here.
Back to Syria, Turkey’s incursion into the north of the country brought with it a series of airstrikes on ISIS positions between al-Bab and Manbij, helping Ankara and its rebels to seize control of a key highway between the two cities, Reuters reports.
One more thing about Turkey: It just added some 300 “commandos” to its Euphrates Shield incursion, Turkish Anadolu news reported Thursday.
What are the survival prospects for the Kurdish project in Syria, one of the chief reasons Turkey invaded where and when it did back in August? Not good—but it’s not yet finished either: “Turkey’s continuing opposition means that prospects for the PYD to build international support for its political goals are slim. This places greater import upon locally-derived legitimacy, an area where the PYD continues to fall short. Only by ensuring real representation of civil society, opposition and Arab and Syriac constituents can Rojava achieve this legitimacy.” The Chatham House has more in their new report called “Governing Rojava.” which you can find here.
The U.S.-led coalition has killed nearly 50,000 ISIS fighters across Iraq and Syria, a U.S. official said Thursday, CBS News reports. “The official said it was a conservative estimate, but it’s a bit more than what others have stated before. U.S. leaders have expressed reluctance to disclose specific numbers, and note that ISIS has been able to replace fighters rapidly, particularly early on.”
Recall that the U.S. military said it had knocked off some 45,000 members of ISIS way back in August.
Bombings are still rocking Baghdad this morning, with two separate attacks killing 10 and wounding 22 others, AP reports from the capital.
ISIS still has several hundred more fighters spread throughout Libya, U.S. officials say now four days after the last of the group’s fighters were believed to have given up the game in Sirte, The New York Times reports.
Hey, Obama administration: What you have known publicly about al-Qaeda isn’t entirely accurate, says Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in an interview with The Cipher Brief on Thursday. His warning: “If one looks at the number of countries that violent, non-state actors have brought to ruin or have cleaved apart, it’s rather alarming. This ranges from Mali to Libya to Yemen, to Iraq and Syria, none of which were on fire in this way at the beginning of President Obama’s watch…Obviously, not all of this can be attributed to the President’s policies...But we can reasonably criticize the decision to intervene in Libya. That’s where things really went off the rails.” To make matters worse, he says, “the Obama Administration’s evaluation of the decline of al Qaeda’s core was, in my judgment, not correct...Al Qaeda’s core leadership is meant to be resilient in the face of attrition. Obviously, whenever senior leaders are taken out and someone like bin Laden is killed, there is a degree weakening. But I’m skeptical that it was weakened as much as popular conception holds.” Read the rest, here.
The U.S. Treasury Department singled out a charity and two “key facilitators” for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as part of their continuing crackdown on the group and its networks, The Long War Journal reported Thursday.
From Defense One
Wanted by the Military: An Ender’s Game Controller for Urban Robot Swarms // Patrick Tucker: The Pentagon is looking for a single controller to enable dismounted ground troops to steer "hundreds" of drones for urban warfare.
Global Business Brief: December 8 // Marcus Weisgerber: Trump tweet chills industry; Talking with SecAF James; Boeing’s ocean drones
ISIS in the Caribbean // The Atlantic’s Simon Cottee: The spread of Salafi Islam and a government’s blind eye toward recruiting has helped lead more Trinidadians to fight for ISIS than any other country in the Western hemisphere.
‘Trump Has Already Created Lots of Chaos’ // The Atlantic’s Uri Friedman: A Chinese scholar argues that the U.S. shouldn't touch Taiwan—just like China wouldn't back separatists in Texas or Hawaii.
Welcome to the Friday edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson, Kevin Baron, and Bradley Peniston. On this day in 1938, the U.S. Navy installed its first test shipboard radar. (Send your friends this link: http://get.defenseone.com/d-brief/. And let us know your news: the-d-brief@defenseone.com.)
Trump may be on collision course with Congress over Russian hacking. U.S. lawmakers call Russian meddling in the election a threat to democracy; the president-elect continues to insist it never happened, most recently in his interview for Time’s Person of the Year. Nextgov’s Joseph Marks reports. (As does the Washington Post, here.)
Why is Trump so adamantly rejecting the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community? Hard to say. But the president-elect’s foreign-policy views continue to be entangled with his business empire. (The Atlantic recently updated its Trump conflict-of-interest crib sheet.) And the latest from the Trump camp, via NYT, is that the president-elect remains determined to hold onto his far-flung businesses while he occupies the Oval Office.
Drones have killed nearly as many ISIS fighters as conventional actions, writes David Ignatius in the Washington Post: “Military sources say that drone strikes have killed between 20,000 and 25,000 Islamic State operatives in Iraq and Syria. U.S. conventional attacks have killed about 30,000, for a total body count of more than 50,000.”
Ignatius’ column — and the information given to him — is an important moment of sunlight on secretive operations by the Joint Special Operations Command and special operators in general. The Pentagon press corps has been pressing historically (and justifiably) quiet commanders to figure out how to talk to the press and tell their story in the “YouTube” war where they often are seen in action in real time. This feels like CENTCOM’s Gen. Joseph Votel and SOCOM’s Gen. Tony Thomas trying to shore up DC support for their already-expanded mission, cut off any misperceptions about what they do, and signal to SOF forces how leaders will convey their ops to the public, in this new era. It’s also a way to lay down the record of what they’ve been doing the past couple years under Commander in Chief Obama, as the war room is passed to Commander in Chief Trump.
NDAA heads to the president’s desk with a veto-proof majority, Military Times reports: “The US Senate has overwhelmingly passed the $618.7 billion defense policy bill that strips added jets and ships, but boosts military manpower above President Barack Obama’s budget… The bill includes a 2.1 percent pay raise for military personnel, set to take effect Jan. 1. That figure is greater than the president's request and, if approved, would mark the first time in five years that military pay has kept pace with project private sector wage growth. The NDAA also orders major organizational changes for the Pentagon. Among them, it splits the job of the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, slashes the number of general officers, caps the size of the National Security Council at 200 and extends the term of the Joint Chiefs chairman to four years.”
As well, “The bill aims to roll back the Obama administration’s planned drawdown and adds related operations and sustainment funds to support the added manpower. Army end strength jumps to 476,000, from 460,000 in 2017, and the Marine Corps jumps to 185,000 from 182,000 in 2017.” Read more about the bill’s contents via this lengthy release from Sen. John McCain’s office.
Secretary Carter is in Afghanistan today on an unannounced visit, AP’s Bob Burns, writes from Bagram. “Carter's visit comes amid concerns that despite improvements in Afghan government defenses, Taliban forces are gaining leverage and are continuing to use neighboring Pakistan as a sanctuary. By U.S. estimates, the Afghan government controls slightly less than two-thirds of the country's population. The Taliban holds sway over about 10 percent, and the remainder of the population is ‘contested.’”
While in Bagram, “Carter said the Trump transition team had not asked to speak to [current Afghan war commander, Gen. John] Nicholson, but he would be made available if requested,” Reuters writes, adding, “Trump will inherit a challenging security situation in Afghanistan. A number of provincial capitals have been under pressure from the Taliban while Afghan forces have been suffering high casualty rates, with more than 5,500 killed in the first eight months of 2016.”
Ties linking Russia to the Taliban are worrying American and Afghan officials, Reuters reported Thursday. What kind of ties? “Mostly political so far,” according to unnamed officials from Kabul. "But a series of recent meetings they say has taken place in Moscow and Tajikistan has made Afghan intelligence and defence officials nervous about more direct support including weapons or funding” via “recent cross-border flights by unidentified helicopters and seizures of new ‘Russian-made’ guns.”
The Russian reax: "They are trying to put the blame for their failures on our shoulders," Russia's ambassador to Kabul, Alexander Mantytskiy, said Thursday. Story, here.
ICYMI: A third U.S. soldier has died from the November 12 attack inside Bagram, the ninth to have been killed in the country this year, the Washington Post reported Thursday. U.S. Army Sgt. First Class Allan E. Brown, 46, of Takoma Park, Md., assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Special Troops Battalion, 1st Sustainment Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division based out of Fort Hood, Tex. He passed away at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Tuesday.
Adds the Post: “Brown was one of 16 Americans wounded in the unprecedented Nov. 12 attack. Two U.S. contractors were killed as were two other soldiers, Sgt. John W. Perry and Pfc. Tyler R. Iubelt. A Polish soldier was also killed. While there have been attacks near and on the perimeter of Bagram, it was the first time in the nearly 15 years since the base has been used by U.S. and NATO forces that a suicide bomber was able to infiltrate its numerous layers of security. Located just north of Kabul, Bagram is the largest U.S.-run instillation in Afghanistan and is a central hub for military operations in the region.” More here.
RIP Capt. Jake Frederick. The pilot of the F/A-18C that crashed off Japan on Wednesday has been found: Capt. Jake Frederick, 32, “was based with the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing in Okinawa. He ejected from his aircraft at about 6:40 pm local time Wednesday,” Stars and Stripes reported Thursday. “Frederick was a graduate of W.B. Ray High School in Corpus Christi, Texas, and attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he met his wife, Kiley, his mother, Donna Frederick, said Thursday. The couple have a young son and a baby on the way.” More here.
A new troop survey says the current demand on trips and families is “unsustainable.” Stars and Stripes: “The Blue Star Families annual Military Family Lifestyle Survey involved 8,390 active duty servicemembers, family members and veterans. It found that while military pay, benefits and retirement continue to rank as the top stressors, family stability, time away from home and the impact on children have newly emerged as key issues.” More here.
In case you were curious, take a look at where the U.S. Navy’s Carrier Strike Groups and Amphibious Ready Groups are operating, thanks to this nifty open source map from STRATFOR.
Finally this week: The Twitter president crossed with a bit of military humor. U.S. intel analysts have been “instructed to limit briefings with Trump to under 140 characters,” the satirical news site, Duffel Blog, reported Thursday. “Spokesperson Kellyanne Conway later held a closed-door session with the Joint Chiefs and the transition team, telling military leaders that anything longer than a tweet to describe the situation in Iraq, or how to resolve the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, would be unacceptable.”
The workaround: “A source with the National Security Agency confirmed the agency began working on a classified social medium when Trump clinched the Republican nomination. ‘All I can say at this point is that we are calling it Sipper.” Read the rest, here. And have a great weekend, everyone!