US sends Marines to Syria; ISIS loses control of Iraqi oil; The worst thing about the Vault7 leak; Army expects cargo-bots within a decade; and just a bit more...
President Trump has ordered a “couple hundred” U.S. Marines to Syria to set up “an outpost from which they can fire artillery guns in support of the fight to oust the Islamic State from the northern Syrian city of Raqqa,” the Washington Post reported Thursday, calling it “the first officially announced deployment of conventional U.S. troops in Syria.”
A defense official said “the Marines’ movement into Syria was not the byproduct of President Trump’s request for a new plan to take on the Islamic State but that it had ‘been in the works for some time.’”
The Marines are part of an artillery battalion armed with M777 howitzers that fire 155mm rounds, two unnamed officials told the Post. The scenario would not be all that different from the Marines’ mission on the outskirts of Mosul roughy 12 months ago—a base “originally named Fire Base Bell, [that] became public after it was attacked by rockets March 19, 2016, killing Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin and wounding at least four other Marines.”
In the name of Raqqa: “The new mission comes as the Trump administration weighs a plan to help Syrian rebels take back Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State,” writes the Post. “The plan also includes more Special Operations troops and attack helicopters.”
Key consideration: “For the base in Syria to be useful, it must be within about 20 miles of the operations that U.S.-backed forces are carrying out. That is the estimated maximum range on many rounds fired from the M-777 howitzer. GPS-guided Excalibur rounds, which the Marines also used after establishing Fire Base Bell, can travel closer to 30 miles,” writes the Post.
The new guys come from Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, and they will reportedly “man the guns and deliver fire support for U.S.-backed local forces who are preparing an assault on the city. Additional infantrymen from the unit will provide security, while resupplies will be handled by part of the expeditionary force’s combat logistics element. For this deployment, the Marines were flown from Djibouti to Kuwait and then into Syria.”
The Marines’ arrival follows the recent emergence of the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, whose troops “appeared in the Syrian city of Manbij over the weekend in Strykers — heavily armed, eight-wheel armored vehicles,” the Post reports. “Defense officials said they are there to discourage Syrian or Turkish troops from making any moves that could shift the focus away from an assault on Islamic State militants.”
That scenario in Manbij has forced the U.S. “to play referee...to protect their Kurdish and Arab allies against a threatened assault by other U.S. allies in a Turkish-backed force,” the Post reported separately Wednesday.
It’s been one of the livelier battlelines in Syria in recent weeks, especially now that Russian troops have arrived to Manbij “under a separate deal that was negotiated without the input of the United States, according to U.S. officials. Under the deal, Syrian troops are to be deployed in the area, also in some form of peacekeeping role, setting up what is effectively a scramble by the armies of four nations to carve up a collection of mostly empty villages in a remote corner of Syria.”
Writes the Post: “The public display, unusual for a small U.S. presence of mostly Special Operations troops officially numbering just 503, is deliberate, a Pentagon spokesman, Capt. Joe [sic? Jeff?] Davis, told reporters this week. “We want to have a visible show that we’re there,” he said, adding that the goal is to urge all parties to “stay focused on the common enemy, which is ISIS.”
But Turkey is very invested in its Euphrates Shield operation in northern Syria. And Turkish officials are still trying to figure out their next step, now that Russia, Syria, the U.S. and the SDF appear to be cooperating against Turkish interests in Manbij, at least temporarily. Reuters lays out the Turkish concerns and their limited options, here.
In case you were curious, Russian and Syrian troops are getting along just fine—dancing, in fact—with U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces today in Manbij, Syria.
Not getting along just fine: Turkey’s army, who reportedly attacked Syrian troops west of Manbij, killing eight and wounding dozens more. More from Arab Al-Masdar News, here.
Meanwhile in Raqqa, the white sheets of ISIS are now covering some streets and alleys, much as they did in West Mosul. Imagery via Al-Masdar News, here.
For the Raqqa offensive, the Pentagon could call up to a thousand “reserve” troops to stage in Kuwait, Reuters reported Wednesday. But the Pentagon declined to comment on the story, which Reuters writes makes it “unclear if the proposal has the support of Defense Secretary Mattis.” More to that story, here.
In what will surely be music to President Trump’s ears, the Pentagon says that ISIS has lost access to its former oil facilities, Stars and Stripes reports after an unnamed defense official spoke to reporters Wednesday. While that’s good news for half of the fight, the group’s Syrian oil field access is a bit different, the official said. “They are largely denied access to oil and gas in Iraq at this point, and so certainly the most fertile oil and gas fields are probably in Deir ez-Zoir province. There are still some oil and gas fields in the vicinity of Palmyra [in Syria] … that they still have access too.”
The official also said ISIS is believed to have some 15,000 fighters remaining across Iraq and Syria, with “about half” in or near Mosul and Raqqa. More from Stripes, here.
In the Mosul offensive, one U.S. platoon is using drones against ISIS “with lethal success,” CBS News’ Holly Williams reports from Mosul. “It looks like a toy plane and sounds like a lawnmower. But the RQ-7Bv2 is a $1.5 million drone. The U.S. military calls it ‘The Shadow.’”
The benefit: "it allows the American coalition to call in airstrikes targeting ISIS positions."
Oh, and those troops: their average age is 22, “many of them keen video gamers,” CBS reports. Said one soldier: operating the Shadow is “much slower paced [than a video game], graphics aren’t quite as good, the controls aren’t quite the same. It’s sort of like a video game, but nobody would buy to play this video game.” Read on, here.
From Defense One
The Coming Fall of Mosul // Andrew Exum, via The Atlantic: Iraqi forces are on the verge of a mighty victory.
US Anti-Missile Batteries Arrive in South Korea, Touching Off Geopolitical Tumult // Quartz’s Josh Horwitz: The weapon's deployment converges with other tensions among China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Malaysia, and the United States.
Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. #OTD1862: USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fight to a draw in the first battle between ironclad vessels. (Got a tip? Let us know by clicking this link to email us: the-d-brief@defenseone.com.)
The worst thing about the Vault7 leak: Don’t hyperventilate about any particular hacking tool or technique revealed in Wikileaks’ (purported) publication of thousands of CIA documents, writes Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez; the more worrying revelation is that the intelligence community apparently cannot secure its own files.
And that spotlights this question: when the U.S. government learns of a vulnerability — in a consumer electronics gadget, say, or an industrial control system — should it help plug the hole or hoard it for later use? Sanchez suggests that the Vault7 leak makes it harder to argue for the latter choice. Read, here.
For another look at what’s in the files, here’s a WaPo dive.
Meanwhile, the CIA has spoken out on the leak — by declining to confirm or deny its veracity, and saying that spying is what they do (though not on “individuals here at home”) and that leaks hurt their ability to do it.
The Trump administration is mulling a resumption of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, WaPo reported Wednesday. “The State Department has approved a resumption of weapons sales that critics have linked to Saudi Arabia’s bombing of civilians in Yemen, a potential sign of reinvigorated U.S. support for the kingdom’s involvement in its neighbor’s ongoing civil war...Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s approval this week of the measure, which officials say needs White House backing to go into effect, provides an early indication of the new administration’s more Saudi-friendly approach to the conflict in Yemen and a sign of its more hawkish stance on Iran.”
Said an unnamed U.S. official to the Post: “We’ll be looking for ways to blunt Iranian malign influence in the region. And we’ll be looking for all the tools that the U.S. government has. In that context, I think you have to look at Yemen.”
The next steps: “If the White House gives its blessing to the new State Department position, the administration would then notify Congress about its intent to move forward with the sale. It could encounter resistance on Capitol Hill.” More here.
Germany is a bit anxious about Russia’s nuclear-capable, 450-mile-range, Iskander-M missiles in Kaliningrad, Reuters reported Wednesday. Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told Russian news agency Interfax, "If Iskander missiles were stationed in Kaliningrad permanently, that would be a cause for great concern and a blow to European security." More here.
Germany wants to buy three Northrop Grumman Triton UAVs for signal intelligence, and it wants to buy them directly from the U.S. Navy, Defense News reported Wednesday—a day after Reuters initially reported Germany’s interest.
Adds Reuters: “The new drones will replace the Euro Hawk program, which Berlin canceled in May 2013 after it became clear that it could cost up to 600 million euros to get the system approved for use in civil airspace...Under the canceled program, it had planned to buy five Euro Hawk aircraft for 1.2 billion euros.” More here.
Also in Deutschland: “The U.S. Army is scouting locations in Germany for potentially basing more soldiers in Europe, where a post-Cold War period of military downsizing is undergoing a reappraisal,” Stars and Stripes reports this morning. “German officials have taken note of [U.S. Army Europe]’s site visits in the towns of Fallingbostel and Bergen, relatively rural areas with nearby training ranges and about 100 miles from the port of Bremerhaven, a key logistical node for the Army. They said they were told by the Army that it was considering putting as many as 4,000 soldiers in northern Germany.” More here.
In other drone news: China is developing stealth drones to evade anti-aircraft missiles, Reuters reports this morning on vague words from Wei Yiyin, deputy general manager of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, who told state-run China Daily that Beijing is "developing near-space and long-range endurance drones." A little bit more, here.
Has there been a better time to be a remotely-piloted aircraft operator? “The U.S. Air Force now has more jobs for MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones than any other type of pilot position,” Military.com reported Wednesday. “[T]he MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper family of remotely piloted aircraft are slated to have more than 1,000 pilot operators, according to fiscal 2017 statistics provided to Military.com on Tuesday. By comparison, the highest numbers in any other aircraft are 889 airmen piloting the C-17 Globemaster III and 803 flying the F-16 Fighting Falcon, said Lt. Col. Tracy Bunko, spokeswoman for [Air Education and Training Command].” Story here.
In less than 10 years, U.S. Army soldiers “will conduct foot patrols in with robots called 'squad multipurpose equipment transport vehicles' that carry rucksacks and other equipment. Overhead, unmanned aircraft will serve as spotters to warn troops of nearby enemy forces,” the Army wrote from TRADOC's Mad Scientist conference on robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomy, held Tuesday at Fort Meade, Md. The goal is to have the Army “fully integrated” with autonomous systems by 2040.
All that sounds great; but there’s at least one big step to take before getting there: the Army will “need to invest in robust communications and network systems that allow autonomous systems to talk to each other." It will also need more in the areas of coding and generating new algorithms, as well as an app store for robots. A bit more from this week’s two-day Mad Scientist conference, here.
Apropos of nothing: How does the Trump-Russia debate play in Wilmington, Ohio? “Nobody really cares,” the Washington Post’s Thomas Gibbons-Neff reported Wednesday after having breakfast with some folks at McDonald’s.
Lastly today: “The U.S. Navy’s top five most dangerous at-sea deployments,” via Navy Times. In descending order: South China Sea (5); the Baltic and Black Seas (4); the Persian Gulf (3); North Korea (2); and you’ll have to read on here to learn the number one destination.