US, Brits point to ISIS bomb fears; Russia sends anti-aircraft systems to Syria; Rebels carve out space in Syria's north; WH ‘should have armed Ukraine’; And a bit more...

November 5, 2015

Bomb fears mount in Russian airliner mystery. British authorities and U.S. intelligence officials say they have information that suggests a bomb brought down the Russian passenger jet that crashed in the Egyptian desert on Saturday, killing all 224 on board. The U.K. announcement sparked a frenzy in Washington, where cautious U.S. officials told Defense Onethey back the British suggestion—10 Downing Street came out first with a statement, adding it was suspending all British-bound flights from the Sinai—but would not yet confirm the disaster was a deliberate explosion or the work of the Islamic State. "Intercepted communications played a role in the tentative conclusion that the Islamic State group's Sinai affiliate planted an explosive device on the plane," a U.S. official told the Associated Press. In the most direct comment from officials yet, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who formerly was the UK defense minister, said on Wednesday: "We have concluded there was a significant possibility that that crash was caused by an explosive device on board the aircraft." Later, CNN, Reuters and others reported U.S. officials saying a bomb was "likely." As a result, the Dutch followed the British suspending flights from Sharm el-Sheikh, the Wall Street Journaladded. Brought to you by Northrop Grumman America Wins. Thirty-five years ago, Northrop Grumman partnered with the U.S. Air Force to build the nation's only stealth bomber. We're proud that once again, the Air Force selected us to deliver the nation's next bomber—a capability essential to America's national security. THIS IS WHAT WE DO. AGAIN. That's The Value of Performance. Northrop Grumman.  It all follows a similar warning Monday from U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, speaking at the Defense One Summit. Clapper said he wouldn't rule out ISIS involvement. The Islamic State's Sinai affiliate released an audio message on Wednesday again claiming credit for the crash. But like the initial claims over the weekend, they provided no evidence or proof. However, "the signs pointing to ISIS, another U.S. official said, are partially based on monitoring of internal messages of the terrorist group. Those messages are separate from public ISIS claims of responsibility," CNN reported. As the investigations continue—with Russian and Egyptian authorities carrying out theirs, while the U.K. dispatched a team to the Sinai—Russia has grounded Metrojet's entire Airbus 321 fleet for safety inspections. Americans are relying in part on foreign work as Washington has not sent a team of investigators to the scene; there are no U.S. carriers in the Sinai.

U.S.-backed Syrian rebels are about to get another shipment of weapons as part of the White House's "dual-track" strategy to "maintain military pressure on Mr. Assad and his Russian and Iranian supporters while U.S. diplomats see if they can ease him from power through negotiations," WSJ's Adam Entous reports. "In the past month of intensifying Russian airstrikes, the CIA and its partners have increased the flow of military supplies to rebels in northern Syria, including of U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles," Entous writes. Why? One reason: "U.S. intelligence agencies are concerned that a few older Manpads may already have been smuggled into Syria through supply channels the CIA doesn't control," Entous adds. Read more, here. And U.S.-backed opposition forces inside Syria have retaken some 255 kilometers of turf, largely to the east and along the Syria-Turkish border, U.S. military spokesman Col. Steve Warren saidfrom Baghdad yesterday. For a clearer picture of where that turf spans, the Pentagon shared thismap. For what it's worth: More than half of Americans polled "now reject Obama's handling of the threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria," Real Clear Defense reports. They say, "...disapproval has jumped 8 percentage points just since January." More here. Mission creep, Moscow-style? Russia's military forces inside Syria have grown to nearly 4,000—up from an estimated 2,000 on Sept. 30, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Russian aircraft are now operating out of four bases, but multiple rocket launcher crews and long-range artillery batteries are reportedly deployed outside the wire of those four bases. On by the way: Russia just sent anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria, its air force chief said Wednesday, citing the risk of hijacked military aircraft. That story, here. The numbers: "Russia's air fleet in Syria comprises 34 fixed-wing aircraft and 16 helicopters," officials told Reuters. "The main Russian base is at the Bassel al-Assad International Airport near the port city of Latakia. All of Moscow's fixed-wing aircraft are flying from there in support of ground offensives by the Syrian army and foreign Shiite militias, the defense official said. Three other bases—Hama, Sharyat and Tiyas—are being used for helicopter gunships, he said. The Russians began operating from Tiyas only this week."

The White House should have sent weapons to Ukraine, says Evelyn Farkas, who stepped down last week as the Pentagon's top policy official for Russia and Ukraine, Defense One's Marcus Weisgerber reports. "I happen to personally fall into the camp that believes we should provide lethal defensive assistance to Ukraine, primarily antitank weapons," she said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast Wednesday. "We need further military assistance, namely modern anti-tank systems, reconnaissance and combat unmanned aerial vehicles," Army Gen. Viktor Muzhenko, chief of the general staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces, told Defense One in an email through a spokesman this week. "Another crucial area is electronic warfare and modern anti-aircraft systems." The U.S. should also consider basing troops in Eastern Europe, Farkas said, a move that Poland has called for on numerous occasions since Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. That story, here. And a bit more on Farkas below the fold. And from the archives of What the…?!—The Pentagon reportedly farmed out coding for computer software involved in sensitive military communications to Russian programmers in Moscow. The case was brought to light as early as 2011 when an Army contractor learned of the Russians' role and set "in motion a four-year federal investigation that ended this week with a multimillion-dollar fine against two firms involved in the work," The Daily Beast reports via The Center for Public Integrity.

From Defense One

President Obama may veto the annual defense authorization bill for the second time in his administration over restrictions on his push to close the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Politics Reporter Molly O'Toole writes. "The House is expected to pass the reintroduced NDAA Thursday, with the Senate shortly after, according to McCain. Both he and Thornberry have made clear the broad policy provisions in the bill, in particular on Guantanamo, will not be changed. That means as early as next week, the defense bill could again be on the president's desk." More here.

This is the last, best chance for the White House to close the detention facility in Cuba—so Obama needs to stick to his veto guns, hurry up and offer his plan to close Guantanamo, argues Raha Wala is senior counsel for defense and intelligence at Human Rights First, writing in Defense One. That take, here.

On the 2016 campaign trail, fast-faltering Jeb Bush recently put forward what his team called a "serious" foreign policy platform. The only problem, writes The Atlantic's Peter Beinart, they're hardly serious—indeed, almost wildly reckless. From laying blame for Syria's humanitarian crisis at the feet of the White House to Obama's negotiations with Jerusalem: "For the first time in the history of Israel, its greatest existential threat has been created by its greatest ally." More here.

China is responsible for 30 percent of the world's "secret" military spending, according to a report from Berlin-based anti-corruption NGO, Transparency International. And Beijing's "additional, off-the-books spending" could be as high as 50 percent of China's official defense expenditure, Quartz reports, here.

Could the Somalia-based extremist group al-Shabab get their hands on a nuclear core?It's not that unreasonable considering the dismal record of Kenyan security forces in the run-up to the International Atomic Energy Agency giving Kenya the OK to begin a nuclear program. More from Quartz, here.

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Game of telephone. The defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff can still talk to their counterparts in Russia even though Washington has suspended military-to-military contact with Moscow. But that doesn't mean their phone calls are productive, said Farkas. When at the Pentagon, Farkas sat in on former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's phone calls with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu. "[T]he conversations that Secretary Hagel had repeatedly, and I was privy to them, with Minister Shoygu were not productive," she said. "And in order for us to recommend to our secretary that he takes 90 minutes out of his very important schedule, very busy schedule, we would have to make a case to him that there would be some kind of productive outcome." Why were the calls so unproductive? "They had a number of phone calls where Secretary Hagel was trying to … get some facts from his counterpart," Farkas said. "His counterpart, frankly, gave him false information. And after that had happened a couple of times, it didn't really make sense to continue the conversations." That included not acknowledging Russian troops were in Crimea.

White House officials under cyber attack from Iran. "Obama administration personnel are among a larger group of people who have had their computer systems hacked in recent weeks, including journalists and academics…[as well as] officials working at the State Department's Office of Iranian Affairs and its Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs," WSJ's Jay Solomon reports. More here.

ICYMI: The U.S. approved Italy's request to arm its MQ-9 drones with "Hellfire missiles, laser-guided bombs and other munitions," Reuters reported Wednesday. "This would be the first effective sale of armed drones approved since the U.S. government established a policy in February for exports of the new type of weapons that have played a key role in U.S. military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen." Further: "Italy would be only the second country to be approved to buy armed drones after Britain, which has been using them since 2007, according to two U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak publicly." More here.

And the folks at the Center for New American Security, or CNAS, just announced the formation of an ISIS Study Group. It includes a lot of former Obama administration officials now critical of the war's path. Leading the group will be CNAS CEO Michèle Flournoy and President Richard Fontaine. Also on tap: retired Gen. David Petraeus, Marine Corps Lt. Col. Peter McAleer, former DoD official and Defense One contributor Derek Chollet and nearly three-dozen other experts. Complete list, here.

"Fool me twice…" For Afghanistan watchers—have fun with this one: The Afghan businessman convicted in the legendary Kabul bank fraud scheme that cost Afghanistan nearly $1 billion is back in Kabul's good graces. "Khalilullah Frozi, is supposed to be serving a 15-year prison sentence...stood with top government officials on Wednesday as he signed the contract for a new township: 8,800 homes across 33 acres of prime real estate in the heart of the capital, with an initial investment of at least $95 million," the NYTs reports.

Hawaii's $15m thud. "The launch of the first satellite from Hawaii went awry Tuesday when the experimental Super Strypi launch vehicle failed midflight," Air Force Times reports. "The center's terse news release did not include any information about what may have caused the launch vehicle to fail. The mission was supposed to deploy 13 small-cube satellites during the flight." The program's Super Strypi rocket "ultimately was expected to cost about $15 million per mission," Popular Mechanics adds.

Lastly today, the U.S. airman who helped thwart the August train attack in Europe can rest a little easier. That after authorities in California arrested a 28-year-old man who faces one count of attempted murder for stabbing Spencer Stone at a bar in Sacramento on Oct. 8, WaPoreported Wednesday. "Police said Wednesday that they arrested Tran after interviewing numerous witnesses. He allegedly stabbed Stone four times in the torso before fleeing in a car...tone, 23, needed emergency surgery, but has recovered well enough to attend and be recognized at an NBA basketball game featuring the Sacramento Kings within the last week. In recognition of his heroics, he also was meritoriously promoted two ranks to staff sergeant by the Air Force during a ceremony Saturday at Travis Air Force Base in California." More here.