Abu Zubaydah (whose real name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Husayn) is perhaps the most egregious victim of the U.S. national security apparatus that ran amok after the September 11 attacks and still grinds on. He appeared in a Guantánamo courtroom Thursday, listening to his attorney Solomon Shinerock tell a board of U.S. officials that a “redacted” country could admit Abu Zubaydah and monitor his activities indefinitely. The detainee will agree to any form of surveillance by the host country, said Shinerock, who did not name the country during the unclassified portion of the hearing.

The prisoner, looking healthy at age 52 in a business suit and tinted glasses, did not sport the piratical eye patch he carried the first time he was seen in a public setting in 2016. At that time, the government was still insisting that Abu Zubaydah had been an important Al Qaeda operative who had advance knowledge of 9/11 and other attacks and was only cooperating with Guantánamo staff as a subterfuge. Since then, the claim that he was “No. 3” in Al Qaeda has been abandoned. The U.S. government’s assessment of Abu Zubaydah has shrunk to a brief statement that he “probably” served as one of Osama bin Laden’s “most trusted” facilitators.

Unlike Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three other alleged 9/11 plotters, Abu Zubaydah has never been charged with any crime. The U.S. assessment notes that he never swore allegiance to bin Laden because the Saudi militant leader focused on attacking the United States while Abu Zubaydah “had wanted to attack Israel for its treatment of Palestinians.”

Abu Zubaydah has the funds to support himself upon release, Shinerock told the panel. The detainee was awarded more than $200,000 by the European Court of Human Rights in 2022 as compensation for CIA torture at black sites located in Lithuania and Poland. In 2023, a United Nations human rights panel, U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, urged the United States to immediately release Abu Zubaydah.

“Bin Laden is dead,” Shinerock said, insisting his client “has no radical or violent tendencies.” He said Abu Zubaydah now believes that “violence is not answer to the problems of the oppressed.”

The fact that Abu Zubaydah is a stateless Palestinian makes his case more complicated. He comes from a Palestinian Bedouin family whose village near Jericho was seized by Israeli settlers in 1948. His grandparents wound up in Gaza, where Abu Zubaydah’s father was born.

According to Cathy Scott-Clark, who communicated with Abu Zubaydah and his family for her book “The Forever Prisoner,” his father could not return to Gaza after the 1967 war, but the family visited his grandparents living in a house in Gaza near the beach.

Abu Zubaydah was born in Saudi Arabia in 1971. Of the five Palestinians detained by the U.S. at Guantánamo, he was the only one designated as being from Gaza. The other Palestinian detainees have been released to Hungary, Germany, and Spain.

Abu Zubaydah was captured by U.S. agents after a gun battle in a so-called Al Qaeda guesthouse in Faisalabad, Pakistan, on March 28, 2002. Over the course of four years, he was held prisoner at CIA black sites in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland, Lithuania, and Morocco, before being sent to Guantánamo in 2006. He was the first detainee to be waterboarded, and he endured that “enhanced interrogation technique” 83 times.

The 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report on the U.S. torture program stated, “After taking custody of Abu Zubaydah, CIA officers concluded that he ‘should remain incommunicado for the remainder of his life,'” which “may preclude [Abu Zubaydah] from being turned over to another country.”

The Department of Defense’s Periodic Review Secretariat — comprised of officials from across the federal government — reviews “whether continued detention of particular individuals held at Guantanamo remains necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.”

Since 2016 — the first time Abu Zubaydah appeared in public after his capture — the board has reviewed his file or held a hearing to review with him present, nine times. After every review, the board has found that “his continued detention is warranted,” and “remains necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.”

It took two years for a final determination to be made after Abu Zubaydah’s last full review hearing in June 2021. Now he awaits a determination on Thursday’s full review and the outcome of ongoing negotiations with an unknown country on his resettlement. If he ever was a threat to U.S. security, has that threat finally subsided?

The post Negotiations Are Underway for Guantánamo’s “Forever Prisoner” From Gaza to Be Released appeared first on The Intercept.

A photo posted by the unit itself, however, seems to suggest that the U.S. was providing support as far back as December of last year. 

The photo, in tandem with the administration’s own statements, highlights the murky nature of the arms ban, how it was imposed, and under what U.S. authority. Two mechanisms could have barred arms transfers: a law passed by Congress specifically prohibiting assistance to Azov, and the so-called Leahy laws that block support to units responsible for grave rights violations. 

“My guess is that the Department found that the Brigade is a ‘new unit,’ distinguishable from the Battalion and the Regiment.”

The State Department said this month that weapon shipments will now go forward after a Leahy law review, but won’t comment on if and when a Leahy ban was in effect. The congressional prohibition, the U.S. says, does not apply because it barred assistance to the Azov Battalion, a predecessor to the Azov Brigade. The original unit had earned scrutiny for alleged human rights violations and ties to neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies.

The U.S. has not made clear about when the apparent ban started, but a deputy Azov commander and media reports indicate some type of prohibition has been in effect for nearly a decade — though the congressional ban has only been in effect since 2018.

“There was a request for resources for the 12th Special Forces Brigade, which prompted a Leahy vetting process, in which they were found to be eligible,” a State Department spokesperson told The Intercept, suggesting the approval process did not deal with any existing bans. (The State Department did not respond to questions asking for clarity if that was the case.)

One former American official said that because of the unit’s byzantine history of reorganizations and official status, the State Department should better explain its decisions.

“Given the history of the Azov Regiment, the Azov Battalion, and the Azov Brigade, the State Department’s ought to provide a more detailed rationale for the finding that the Brigade is eligible pursuant to the Leahy law,” Charles Blaha, the former director of the State Department’s Office of Security and Human Rights, told The Intercept. “My guess is that the Department found that the Brigade is a ‘new unit,’ distinguishable from the Battalion and the Regiment. If that’s correct, the Department should say so.”

U.S. Special Ops Training

Restrictions on U.S. military support may have been in effect when the Azov Brigade’s official Telegram channel and X account announced in March that the unit’s personnel recently completed an American military training. The course, on civil–military cooperation, was provided by U.S. Special Operations Command Europe, or SOCEUR, according to the posts.

One attached photo shows a captain in the Azov unit being presented with a certificate dated December 2023 by a person with a blurred face in U.S. military fatigues. A second photo shows a group of people in U.S. military apparel holding an American flag next to a group of several dozen others, some of whom are holding a flag with the Azov insignia.

Department of Defense spokesperson Tim Gorman would not comment on the SOCEUR training, including whether or not it was legal, and referred The Intercept to the State Department. (The Azov unit did not respond to a request for comment.)

The State Department also declined to answer repeated questions about the SOCEUR training and its legality, or whether there had been other U.S. military training with Azov before clearing the group under the Leahy laws.

The spokesperson told The Intercept that it found no evidence of the Azov Brigade committing violations of human rights that would bar American aid under the Leahy laws.

Russia has tried to discredit the Azov Brigade, the State Department spokesperson said, by conflating it with its predecessor, the Azov Battalion militia. The Azov Battalion, which is under congressional sanctions, was absorbed into the Ukrainian National Guard in 2014 then underwent several more reorganizations before becoming a brigade in 2023. Others have echoed concerns of propaganda against Azov, pointing to Russia’s amplification of claims about Nazis in Ukraine to justify its invasion.

“That militia disbanded in 2015 and the composition of Special Forces Brigade Azov is significantly different,” the spokesperson noted. Another spokesperson, meanwhile, said, “The Battalion was disbanded in 2014 and the United States has never provided security assistance to the ‘Azov battalion.’”

With the State Department leaning on the distinction between the “battalion” and the “brigade” to get around congressional sanctions, some representatives are moving to shore up the statutory ban on military support to Azov. In recent days, the proposed defense appropriations language was updated. 

“None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to provide arms, training, intelligence, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion, the Third Separate Assault Brigade, or any successor organization,” the new language reads, gesturing to a brigade created by Battalion veterans, as well as the Azov Brigade itself. The current language in effect only addresses the Azov Battalion.

A former House staffer who was involved in efforts to ban support to Azov, requesting anonymity for fear of threats from the group, told The Intercept, “The fact that Congress is moving so quickly to reaffirm that the ban does apply to ‘successor organizations’ like the Azov Regiment, Azov Brigade, or whatever else they might change their name to next, shows that the White House view doesn’t hold water.”

Significantly Different?

As it is, the State Department’s limited rationale for lifting arms restrictions rests on the claim that the composition of the battalion and the brigade are “significantly different.” That finding would be made under provisions of the Leahy determinations that allow for differentiating between old and “fundamentally different units,” such as changes in leadership and culture. 

Yet the Azov unit has significant continuity and, while Leahy laws are concerned with human rights, the State Department’s appeal to the Leahy determination may not cover the ideological justification of the congressional ban on the transfer of arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.

Azov commander Denys Prokopenko and deputy commander Svyatoslav Palamar, for instance, are holdovers from the original battalion militia. And, along with other higher-ranking Azov members, they are linked to white supremacist and neo-Nazi ideologies, as Ukrainian journalist Lev Golinkin reported in The Nation last year. 

“If the White House wants to arm and train the most neo-Nazi-linked group in Ukraine, it should push for Congress to remove the ban.”

The suggestion that the battalion was “disbanded” and the brigade is “significantly different” is also undermined by the unit’s own words. A page on their website celebrates its 10-year anniversary. “This is the path from a few dozen volunteers, who had only motivation and faith in justice, to a special purpose brigade — one of the most effective units of the Defense Forces,” it reads.

Another biographical page suggests the Azov Battalion was never actually dissolved, but subsumed into the official Ukrainian military structure. “On September 17, 2014, by order of the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the ‘Azov’ battalion was reorganized and expanded into the ‘Azov’ special purpose militia regiment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” the page says. “On November 11, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine signed an order on the transfer of the ‘Azov’ regiment to the National Guard of Ukraine, with its further staffing up to the combat standard of the National Guard brigades.”

Josh Paul, a former director in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs who resigned in protest of the administration’s policy on Israel’s Gaza war, told The Intercept he was not aware of any standing restriction on Azov. He recalled speaking to subject matter experts who said there were no concerns, and, as far as he knew, the unit had been eligible for aid since at least 2022. “My understanding is that they genuinely are different entities,” he said, adding that he did not see any evidence while at the State Department to suggest the Azov Brigade should be prohibited from receiving security assistance.

Ukrainian officials, for their part, seemed to suggest to the Washington Post that there was indeed a ban, one that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba apparently raised to Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month. (Paul said there was “something odd going on, but my solid recollection is that there was no restriction, so I’m not sure what the Ukrainians are on about.”)

Two months ago — after the social media pictures appearing to show the training — Prokopenko, the Azov commander, said on X, “Azov is still blacklisted from receiving any U.S. aid.” In a May post, Prokopenko complained Azov had fought to defend Mariupol in 2022 with limited resources and outdated weapons because of the congressional ban on aid — suggesting the statutory sanctions applied to the unit at the time.

“The unavoidable reality is that there is a current ban on U.S. arms and training going to the Azov units,” said the former House staffer. “If the White House wants to arm and train the most neo-Nazi-linked group in Ukraine, it should push for Congress to remove the ban.”

“That may be a tall ask, however, as Congress is currently seeking to strengthen the law, rather than weaken it.”

The post The U.S. Says a Far-Right Ukrainian Army Unit Can Now Get Aid. A Photo Shows Training Was Already Happening. appeared first on The Intercept.

Federal prosecutors are so consumed by my efforts to report on a terrorism court case that they accused me in a recent filing of having “improper motives.” They said that, by doing routine reporting, I was somehow colluding with a terrorism defendant to “taint the jury pool and undermine the fairness of the trial.”

These dangerous claims are the subject of an evidentiary hearing in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Thursday.

My reporting so far suggests potential constitutional violations.

The attack by the Justice Department should be seen for what it is: a breathtaking assault against journalism by the Biden administration.

Although President Joe Biden boasts that his administration defends press freedoms around the world, his Justice Department’s public claims are an egregious attack against me filled with baseless assumptions and statements taken wildly out of context.

Prosecutors appear to have subjected me to this attack for no reason other than that I was doing journalism in the public interest. (Lawyers for The Intercept submitted a letter to U.S. District Judge Jonathan J. C. Grey and will be present at the hearing Thursday.)

While shocking for its content, the government’s attack on me is not entirely surprising. The case I’m investigating raises thorny issues about the FBI’s conduct, and federal prosecutors have complained in filings and court hearings over the past year about my contact with the defendant in the case.

My reporting so far suggests that the terrorism case involves questionable dealings between federal and local law enforcement agents; intrusive surveillance over a period of years that yielded little evidence; and even potential constitutional violations. (The prosecutors in the case did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)

For digging into this, Biden’s Justice Department is accusing me of having ulterior motives — and using the allegation as an excuse to keep information from the public.

FBI on a Local Robbery Case?

My involvement with this saga began five years ago, when I was reporting on a related terrorism case. I’d been secretly communicating with Russell Dennison, an American who had traveled to Syria and joined the Islamic State terrorist group.

Until his 2019 killing by an airstrike in eastern Syria, Dennison had sent me hours of recordings over more than six months, describing his life and involvement with ISIS as the so-called caliphate collapsed around him. Dennison’s recordings and my reporting about them became “American ISIS,” an eight-part documentary podcast for The Intercept and Audible.

After Dennison’s death, I spent months tracking down people he’d known, including those he mentioned in his recordings. One was a slender Iraqi-born Michigan man named Aws Naser.

Naser had his own story arc. He’d come to the United States from Iraq as a boy before the 9/11 attacks and, after graduating high school, returned to Iraq as a U.S. military translator. His path crossed with Dennison’s when the latter was still living in Florida and Naser had returned to Michigan. The two met through YouTube, and their paths, even after Dennison’s death, have crisscrossed to this day.

After the FBI arrested one of his friends on terrorism charges in 2012, Dennison flew to Michigan and stayed with Naser before traveling to Iraq. Naser visited Dennison in Iraq later that year, though at the time, Dennison wasn’t associated with ISIS or other terrorist groups.

When Naser returned to the U.S. from the trip, he found himself subjected to intense FBI questioning and surveillance. And he wasn’t alone. Dennison was an unwitting pawn for the FBI. Anyone who communicated with him became a target.

At the time, based on the FBI scrutiny, Naser falsely assumed that Dennison had been working for FBI. In truth, the FBI was struggling to build a case against Naser.

Then Naser gave the FBI an opening. He had a dispute with his boss at a convenience store. Frustrated over unpaid wages, Naser pepper-sprayed a co-worker and took what he believed he was owed from the cash register. He was arrested for armed robbery.

Following his arrest, the FBI obtained the search warrant for Naser’s home — not the local police, as you’d expect.

Following his arrest, the FBI obtained the search warrant for Naser’s home — not the local police, as you’d expect in a state robbery investigation.

The evidence the FBI collected from the search, which I obtained from state prosecutors, made clear that federal agents weren’t interested in the robbery case. Instead, the FBI took photos of Naser’s passport, plane tickets, business cards for a taxi driver and a jeweler in Iraq, and a piece of paper with a handwritten phone number for Dennison’s mother in Florida.

Naser was found guilty of armed robbery at trial and sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, but the FBI wasn’t finished with him.

The Dennison Connection

Naser was in state prison for this robbery conviction when I first contacted him in 2019. He had been sent back behind bars following parole violations.

I explained to him that Dennison wasn’t an FBI informant, as he’d once thought, but instead had become an ISIS fighter who was wanted by the FBI.

“This actually makes sense because the FBI, every time they’ve met me, every time they’ve interviewed me, every time they raided me, the only thing they’re asking me about is Dennison,” Naser told me in 2019.

I included the interviews with Naser in prison and described how his story intersected with Dennison’s in “American ISIS,” which was released in July 2021. And I never expected to talk to Naser again.

Then, in November 2022, the Justice Department charged Naser with attempting to provide material support to ISIS. (He denies the charges.)

The initial charging documents were unusually sparse; there was no explanation of how or when Naser allegedly supported ISIS. One thing, though, seemed clear: The indictment had to be related to Dennison.

Naser and I began talking by phone again in February 2023. He had been transferred from a state prison to a federal detention center to face the terrorism charges.

Over the last 16 months, I’ve recorded more than 11 hours of phone interviews with Naser, part of an ongoing effort to produce an audio documentary about his case.

And I wasn’t the only one recording. The Justice Department was listening to our calls.

“Gleefully Shared Information”

“Now, listen, this phone call is being recorded,” Naser told me in our first conversation after his federal indictment.

At the time, Naser had been given some of the evidence in his case. While a protective order prohibited documents and recordings from being given to others, such as journalists, nothing prohibited Naser from summarizing to me the contents of the evidence against him.

In that initial conversation, Naser told me that the evidence included a sealed indictment against Dennison. As he received more evidence in his case, he’d call me to describe the documents.

The Justice Department, however, didn’t like Naser’s calls to me.

In April 2023, federal prosecutors complained in a court filing that Naser “gleefully shared information” with me. My calls with Naser became a central focus of a hearing in June 2023, during which prosecutors admitted that the protective order did not prohibit Naser from talking to me about the evidence in his case.

“He did not improperly distribute this information,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Dmitriy Slavin in the June 2023 hearing. “Because information that is general discovery which is still concerning this case, there’s no limit on him sharing that information with the media, and he has made it his mission to share that information with the media.”

For a time, the Justice Department and Naser played chicken. Prosecutors refused to turn over new evidence, and in turn, Naser refused to accept a modified protective order that would bar him from talking to me.

During this time, the government’s case against Naser dribbled out slowly in filings. Prosecutors allege that he boasted of killing a gold merchant in Iraq in an online extremist forum where a government informant was present — though it’s unclear whether prosecutors have evidence to support the claim — and that Naser possessed ISIS propaganda, drones, and household chemicals.

Fourth Amendment Violations?

Evidence in Naser’s case raises questions about whether federal agents violated Naser’s constitutional rights more than seven years ago. My recent efforts to find out more about these potential violations of the Fourth Amendment, which protect people from unreasonable search and seizure, led to the Justice Department’s attacks on me.

Despite years of investigation, the FBI could not build a strong enough case against Naser to obtain a search warrant. Enter the local authorities. Naser had been released on parole in 2016. As a parolee, Naser was subject to searches at any time by a parole officer.

The following year, a parole officer Naser had never encountered before did make such a search: He took Naser’s phone and captured a forensic image of it, essentially a copy of all the data from the device. The parole officer then provided the data to the FBI. The same parole officer returned to Naser a few months later and seized a second phone for the FBI.

Federal agents used the contents of the phones to justify six new search warrants. Naser’s lawyers describe the phone searches as a “convenient workaround for the FBI” that created a “prolonged erasure of his Fourth Amendment rights.” In describing this alleged constitutional violation, Naser’s lawyers filed under seal several FBI reports related to the partnership with the parole officer.

In phone calls in April, Naser told me that these FBI reports describe an improper arrangement between federal agents and the parole officer. According to Naser, the reports state that the parole officer’s daughter had reportedly been the victim of a sexual assault that had gone unsolved and that he wanted FBI agents to investigate the case. Naser, describing the alleged arrangement, told me: “In return for that help, he was going to help them with me.”

“Improper Motives”

A few weeks after Naser told me about these reports, his lawyers filed a motion to unseal them. The government responded on May 29 with an attack against me, alleging that I have “improper motives” and intend to release a “one-sided” and “sensationalized” work of journalism prior to the trial that will “taint the jury.”

To support its claim that I have “improper motives,” the Justice Department wrote: “Naser and Aaronson discussed a sexual assault involving a witness’s family member and expressed an interest in learning more background details connected to it.”

Of course, prosecutors omitted the key context: that this sexual assault case appears to be at the center of a reported quid pro quo that may have violated Naser’s constitutional rights and raises larger questions about the FBI’s partnerships with state and local police agencies in terrorism investigations.

Why is the Justice Department so concerned about the contents of the sealed FBI reports that prosecutors have resorted to public attacks against a journalist?

The Justice Department has argued — and will argue in the hearing Thursday — that the information I have been seeking, through my interviews with Naser and other reporting efforts, is not of significant public interest. This is demonstrably false.

Parts of Naser’s story have already been told in my documentary podcast “American ISIS” and in Wall Street Journal reporter Brett Forrest’s book “Lost Son: An American Family Trapped Inside the FBI’s Secret Wars.” In addition, the Detroit News has covered the case’s ongoing proceedings.

More significantly, the Justice Department’s attacks against me raise the public interest value of these FBI reports further: Why is the Justice Department so concerned about the contents of the sealed FBI reports that prosecutors have resorted to public attacks against the journalist who has been working to obtain that information?

If the Biden administration is serious about protecting press freedoms, officials from Washington might want to have a stern talk with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit.

Meanwhile, I haven’t given up my ambitions for a larger work about Naser’s case. Maybe I should thank federal prosecutors for the publicity.

The post Federal Prosecutors Attacked Me for My Reporting — and They’re Doing It to Hide Info From the Public appeared first on The Intercept.

In August 2023, the Defense Department unveiled Replicator, its initiative to field thousands of “all-domain, attritable autonomous (ADA2) systems”: Pentagon-speak for low-cost (and potentially AI-driven) machines — in the form of self-piloting ships, large robot aircraft, and swarms of smaller kamikaze drones — that they can use and lose en masse to overwhelm Chinese forces.

Earlier this month, two Pentagon offices leading this charge announced that four nontraditional weapons makers had been chosen for another drone program, with test flights planned for later this year. The companies building this “Enterprise Test Vehicle,” or ETV, will have to prove that their drone can fly over 500 miles and deliver a “kinetic payload,” with a focus on weapons that are low-cost, quick to build, and modular, according to a 2023 solicitation for proposals and a recent announcement from the Air Force Armament Directorate and the Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon’s off-the-shelf acceleration arm. Many analysts believe that the ETV initiative may be connected to the Replicator program. DIU did not return a request for clarification prior to publication.

The new robot planes will mark a shift from the Defense Department’s “legacy” drones which DIU says are “over-engineered” and “labor-intensive” to produce. The four contractors chosen for the program are Anduril Industries, Integrated Solutions for Systems, Leidos Dynetics, and Zone 5 Technologies, which were selected from a field of more than 100 applicants.

The goal is to choose one or more variants of what look to be suicide drones (weapon-makers prefer “loitering munitions”) that can be mass produced through “on-call” manufacturing and churned out in quantity as needed. (DIU did not offer clarification on whether all prototypes are expected to be strictly kamikaze aircraft.) These drones will likely be smaller than the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones — which were used extensively as ground-launched, reusable, missile-firing assassination weapons during the first decades of the war on terror — and more versatile, since the new ETVs must include an air-delivered variant that can be dropped or launched from cargo aircraft.

For the last 25 years, uncrewed Predators and Reapers, piloted by military personnel on the ground, have been killing civilians across the planet, from Afghanistan and Libya to Syria and Yemen.

To highlight just one instance, a 2018 U.S. drone strike in Somalia killed at least three, and possibly five, civilians — including 22-year-old Luul Dahir Mohamed and her 4-year-old daughter Mariam Shilow Muse — as revealed by a 2023 investigation by The Intercept, prompting two dozen human rights organizations and five members of Congress to call for the Pentagon to compensate Luul and Mariam’s family for the deaths. 

Experts worry that mass production of new low-cost, deadly drones will lead to even more civilian casualties. “The clear danger is that these drones will be used at a greater scale, raising questions about the possibility of civilian harm,” Priyanka Motaparthy, the director of the Project on Counterterrorism, Armed Conflict and Human Rights at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute, told The Intercept. “We need to know if these drones might be used in situations that put civilians at risk. We need to know how risks will be assessed.”

While U.S. drones have relied on human operators to conduct lethal strikes — many times with disastrous results — advances in artificial intelligence have increasingly raised the possibility of robot planes, in various nations’ arsenals, selecting their own targets. 

Electronic jamming by Russia in the Ukraine war has spurred a shift to autonomous drones that lock on a target and continue their mission even when communications with a human operator have been severed. Last year, the Ukrainian drone company Saker claimed its fully autonomous Saker Scout was using AI to identify and attack 64 different types of Russian “military objects.”

Ukraine has employed as many as 10,000 low-cost drones per month to counter the Russian military’s advantage in forces. Pentagon officials see Ukraine’s drone force as a model for countering the larger military of the People’s Republic of China. “Replicator is meant to help us overcome the PRC’s biggest advantage, which is mass,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, one of the officials overseeing that program.

Last month, the Pentagon announced it would “accelerate fielding of the Switchblade-600 loitering munition” — a kamikaze anti-armor drone from contractor AeroVironment that flies overhead until it finds a target — that has been used extensively in Ukraine. “This is a critical step in delivering the capabilities we need, at the scale and speed we need,” said Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of Indo-Pacific Command, or INDOPACOM.

At a recent NATO conference, Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation, discussed the potential for using AI and a network of acoustic sensors to target a Russian “war criminal” for assassination by autonomous drone. “Computer vision works,” he said. “It’s already proven.”

The use of autonomous weapons has been subject to debate for over a decade. Since 2013, the Stop Killer Robots campaign, which has grown to a coalition of more than 250 nongovernmental organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, has called for a legally binding treaty banning autonomous weapons. 

Pentagon regulations released last year state that fully- and semi-autonomous weapons systems must be used “in accordance with the law of war” and “DoD AI Ethical Principles.” The latter, released in 2020, only stipulate, however, that personnel will exercise “appropriate” levels of “judgment and care” when it comes to developing and deploying AI.

But “care” has never been an American hallmark. For the last century, the U.S. military has conducted airstrikes demonstrating a consistent disregard for civilians: casting or misidentifying ordinary people as enemies; failing to investigate civilian harm allegations; excusing casualties as regrettable but unavoidable; and failing to prevent their recurrence or to hold troops accountable.

During the first 20 years of the war on terror, the U.S. conducted more than 91,000 airstrikes across seven major conflict zones — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen — and killed up to 48,308 civilians, according to a 2021 analysis by Airwars, a U.K.-based airstrike monitoring group.

The Defense Department repeatedly misses its deadline for reporting the number of civilians that U.S. operations kill each year, the lowest bar for accountability for its actions. Its 2022 report was issued this April, a year late. The Pentagon blew its congressionally mandated deadline for the 2023 report on May 1 of this year. Last month, The Intercept asked Lisa Lawrence, the Pentagon spokesperson who handles civilian harm issues, why the 2023 report was late and when to expect it. A return receipt indicates that she read the email, but she failed to offer an answer.

At least one of the new drone prototypes will go into full production for the military, based on how Special Operations Command, INDOPACOM, and others evaluate their performance. The winner, or winners, of the competition will be chosen to “continue development toward a production variant capable of rapidly scalable manufacture,” according to DIU.

A drone scale-up in the absence of accountability worries Columbia Law’s Motaparthy. “The Pentagon has yet to come up with a reliable way to account for past civilian harm caused by U.S. military operations,” she said. “So the question becomes, ‘With the potential rapid increase in the use of drones, what safeguards potentially fall by the wayside? How can they possibly hope to reckon with future civilian harm when the scale becomes so much larger?’”

The post Cheap and Lethal: The Pentagon’s Plan for the Next Drone War appeared first on The Intercept.

The article, which calls for “standing up to Africa’s juntas,” fails to mention that at least 15 military officers who benefited from U.S. security assistance have been involved in 12 coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel during the war on terror.

“An alarming string of military coups across the Sahel in recent years has greatly marginalized Western engagement in this important and highly volatile region,” wrote Jeffrey Smith, the founding director of the pro-democracy nonprofit organization Vanguard Africa, and Joseph Siegle, the director of research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution, in a recent article published in the Journal of Democracy as well as the Africa Center.

Focusing specifically on the mutinies in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, they note, “Russia has had an active and not-so-subtle hand in coups in each of these three countries, which were preceded by at least a year of intensive disinformation aimed at destabilizing the democratically elected (and Western-leaning) governments in place.”

A series of reports by The Intercept found that military personnel who had received U.S. support were involved in coups in Burkina Faso (in 2014, 2015, and twice in 2022), Mali (in 2012, 2020, and 2021), and Niger (in 2023). U.S.-supported officers also played a role in coups in Mauritania (2008), Gambia (2014), Chad (2021), and Guinea (2021). 

The total number of U.S.-trained mutineers across Africa since 9/11 may be far higher than is known, but the State Department, which tracks data on U.S. trainees, is either unwilling or unable to supply it. 

The Pentagon is mandated to provide a briefing on coups carried out by U.S.-trained African partners to the Senate and House Armed Services committees but missed its March deadline. A source on Capitol Hill told The Intercept that the Pentagon eventually held the required classified briefing, but the Department of Defense failed to confirm the information. 

The U.S. has recently been forced into withdrawing its troops from Niger and Chad due to souring relations with these longtime allies and the former acolytes who now lead them. 

“While the juntas justify their coups — and continued strongman rule — based on the claim that they are uniquely able to restore security, episodes of violence linked to militant Islamist groups have doubled since these militaries have seized power,” wrote Smith and Siegle. 

Aside from a single sentence noting that “Western countries had been working closely with democratically elected governments in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali for more than a decade,” the report contains no substantive discussion of the billions in security assistance the U.S. government has pumped into the Sahel, nor the military training provided to many of the leaders of these coups. The failure of U.S. counterterrorism efforts and the far higher spikes in terrorist violence over the span of U.S. involvement also go unmentioned. 

Throughout all of Africa, the State Department counted a total of just nine terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2003, the first years of U.S. counterterrorism assistance in the Sahel. Last year, the number of violent events in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger alone reached 3,716, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a crisis monitoring organization. This represents a jump of more than 41,000 percent.

This has been disastrous for the people of the Sahel. In that same period, the number of fatalities linked to Islamist violence has skyrocketed from the State Department’s count of 23 deaths in 2002 and 2003 to 11,643 in 2023 — a jump of more than 50,000 percent — according to figures provided by the Pentagon’s Africa Center.

Earlier this year, Gen. Michael Langley, the head of U.S. Africa Command, pushed back on any implication that U.S. support to African military personnel was linked to their rebellions. “There is no syllabus for overthrowing a government; not in our institutions,” said Langley. “It’s safe to say there’s no correlation or causation of U.S. training to a coup happening.” 

Siegle did not reply to a request for an interview sent to him via the Africa Center. Smith told The Intercept he was unsure if the rise in terrorism across the Sahel was higher during America’s interventions compared to the period of Russian involvement, but emphasized that this was “not an apology for or justification of failed U.S. policy for over a generation.” He also conceded that U.S. training of junta leaders, and abusive militaries in the region writ large, was “a fair criticism to raise.”

The post After Training African Coup Leaders, Pentagon Blames Russia for African Coups  appeared first on The Intercept.

During the hearing for the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is charged with masterminding the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, Stafford Smith said the government attorneys had failed to release exculpatory information about Nashiri and made false statements in the course of their failure.

Stafford Smith, the lead counsel for Ahmed Rabbani, a former Guantánamo detainee who was tortured by the CIA, made the allegations after being called to the witness stand by Nashiri’s defense team.

“I’ve never, ever, in 40 years reported someone to the bar before this case.”

Stafford Smith testified that the prosecutors had filed a brief that falsely said Rabbani had not recanted his initial testimony because, Rabbani said, it was made under torture. After raising the omission, Stafford Smith said, he felt it was not getting due attention and took the unusual step of reporting the prosecutors to their state bar associations.

“I’ve never, ever, in 40 years reported someone to the bar before this case,” Stafford Smith said in court. “I don’t like doing that, but I felt I was required to.”

In the court motion last year that set off Stafford Smith’s ethics complaints, the Guantánamo prosecutors said they had no knowledge of Rabbani’s recantation or claims the testimony in question were extracted by torture. (The chief prosecutor’s office declined to comment for this story.)

Stafford Smith and Kristin Davis, another attorney from Rabbani’s legal team, told the court that, in the 2018 and 2019 “proffer sessions” to negotiate Rabbani’s release from Guantánamo, the detainee recanted his past testimony, which he told government investigators he made under torture.

The recantation should have been recorded and made available to Nashiri’s defense team under the Brady rule, which mandates the release of exculpatory evidence. A court filing by the prosecution in 2023 showed that this never happened.

Nashiri’s lawyer, Anthony Natale, said in an interview before this week’s court hearing that the prosecutors’ alleged falsehoods and failures to hand over exculpatory materials were indicative of why the Guantánamo military commissions have foundered, yielding no convictions at trial since their creation nearly a quarter century ago.

“The situation,” Natale told The Intercept, “is one of many where the government’s abandonment of our constitutional principles resulted in injustice and delay.”

Recantation

Stafford Smith’s 2023 bar complaints were set in motion by the negotiations five years earlier over Rabbani’s release. Stafford Smith and Davis had agreed to allow Rabbani to cooperate with the FBI in Nashiri’s prosecution in a bid to expedite their client’s release.

In the “proffer session,” the government wanted Rabbani to confirm incriminating statements made in the early 2000s against Nashiri. It was understood among Guantánamo detainees, Rabbani told The Intercept in an interview, that giving testimony about other detainees could help facilitate an early exit from the prison camp.

Related

Collapse of USS Cole Bombing Case Marks Another Failure for Guantánamo’s Military Courts

He said he had seen it happen before, with former Guantánamo detainee, Ahmed al-Darbi, who was repatriated to Saudi Arabia in 2018. Darbi — who was, like Rabbani, identified as a victim of torture by the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2014 report on abuses during CIA terror investigations — had been offered the option to testify against Nashiri and took the deal.

That testimony from Darbi, however, was also false, according to Rabbani’s account of conversations with Darbi before either was released from Guantánamo. In the prison, Rabbani had confronted Darbi about falsehoods concerning Nashiri.

“When I scolded him, he responded that he wanted to get out no matter the price,” Rabbani told The Intercept. “I told him that he is involving al-Nashiri in things the latter hadn’t done — and you save yourself, leaving him behind in his predicament that wasn’t of his making.”

Darbi, Rabbani said, expressed contrition: “He showed remorse when it was too late.” (Darbi, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to a role in a 2002 Al Qaeda bombing of a French oil tanker, is currently serving his prison sentence in Saudi Arabia and cannot be reached for comment.)

In 2018, Rabbani’s attorneys were seeking a deal like the one that got Darbi out of Guantánamo, Stafford Smith said in court, but he had cautioned his client not to perjure himself. Rabbani, unlike Darbi, had never been charged with a crime.

Rabbani told The Intercept that, during his interviews with the FBI in 2018 or 2019, he recanted his past statements about Nashiri. Rabbani said he repeatedly raised his torture to the FBI agents and attributed his statements about Nashiri to the torture. Davis confirmed in court Tuesday that Rabbani refused to confirm his past allegations because they were made under torture.

Five years later, the Guantánamo prosecutors announced that they still planned to solicit testimony from Rabbani and potentially call him as a witness. In January 2023, prosecutors filed a pleading claiming they had no knowledge of Rabbani giving exculpatory information about Nashiri.

“The Prosecution has found no information that during the proffer sessions either detainee recanted prior statements or that they made additional allegations their prior statements implicating the Accused were the product of or result of torture,” the pleading says, referencing Rabbani and a second detainee whose statements against Nashiri had come into question.

Related

Their Fathers Were Caught in the 9/11 Dragnet. Guantánamo Came to Define Their Lives.

The prosecutors’ claims of ignorance got under Stafford Smith’s skin. In late February, according to a emails obtained by The Intercept, he wrote to Navy Rear Adm. Aaron Rugh, the head of the prosecution team, alleging that the pleading contained false statements and requesting the signatories’ bar numbers. Rugh responded that he would investigate the matter but did not send the lawyers’ information. (In response to a request for comment, Rugh’s office said, “When matters are pending litigation, it would be inappropriate for the Department of Defense to comment.”)

Stafford Smith found seven of the nine lawyers’ bar numbers and reported them. Six of the complaints use nearly identical language, with slight differences in the introductions and occasional added specifics. A seventh, made later, contains more information and additional allegations. For all but one of the prosecutors, their state bar associations list no public record of discipline; one of the prosecutors has a grievance case listed, but no resolution.

“You certainly understand how serious it would need to be to report someone to the bar?” a prosecutor asked Stafford Smith at the hearing Tuesday.

Stafford Smith replied, “I do, absolutely.”

Torture Testimony

The CIA tortured Rabbani for more than 540 days, according to the Senate torture report. The torture included a stint in a covert American black site in Afghanistan.

Rabbani has described being held in complete darkness for long periods and being subjected to a medieval torture technique known as “strappado”: hanging someone by their bound arms and suddenly dropping them.

Recounting his ordeal later, Rabbani said he gave incriminating statements about Nashiri sometime between 2002 and 2004 while at the black site.

Last August, the Nashiri case at Guantánamo’s military commission was shaken up when the then-judge said an early confession by Nashiri was inadmissible because it was extracted through torture. The ruling dealt a blow to the government’s longest-running death penalty case under the military commissions.

Testimony at the commission hearing on Tuesday, however, indicates that the government’s quest to use evidence obtained through torture from other detainees was well underway when the judge made his decision on Nashiri’s confession — and that the pursuit of torture testimony continues into the present.

Rabbani said that the attempts to use his testimony speaks to a failure to reckon with Guantánamo, torture, and the other excesses of the U.S. campaign against terrorism.

“America does not want to admit the bitter truth of their failure in investigations,” he told The Intercept, “and the practice of injustice and torture that is internationally prohibited.”

The post Guantánamo Prosecutors Accused of “Outrageous” Misconduct for Trying to Use Torture Testimony appeared first on The Intercept.

The May 13 sentencing, on charges made under Algeria’s broad Article 87 anti-terror laws, which can carry the death penalty, came despite assurances from the U.S. State Department that he would be treated “appropriately” and “humanely” after being repatriated after his stint in Guantánamo.

Bakhouch was the most recent Guantánamo detainee to be transferred out of the military prison under the Biden administration, never having been charged with a crime. Bakhouch, his American lawyer Candace Gorman said, was a victim of torture at the hands of the U.S. and slowly deteriorated over his 20 years of arbitrary detention until his release in April 2023.

When Bakhouch first arrived in Algeria, he was immediately taken into custody by Algeria’s internal security forces — a standard and usually brief period of detention for Algerian detainees returning from Guantánamo. Bakhouch was vulnerable, Gorman said, having mentally deteriorated in recent years.

Gorman had warned about possible post-traumatic stress disorder and depression ahead of his repatriation. Nonetheless, Bakhouch was held incommunicado and subjected to intense interrogation with no lawyer present.

“He was interrogated every day of the 12 days — after decades of trauma — was given no help from a lawyer and he was under extreme pressure while being threatened by the interrogators,” Sofiane Chouiter, a Canada-based attorney who is providing legal support to Bakhouch, told The Intercept.

Chouiter, the president of the Justitia Center for the Legal Protection of Human Rights in Algeria, obtained a transcript of the interrogation by the Algerian intelligence services showing that Bakhouch, in the course of the encounter, began agreeing with all the accusations made against him. Bakhouch responded to all the questions with “sure, yes,” Chouiter told The Intercept.

The transcript doesn’t include what Bakhouch told Chouiter was the initial part of the interrogation, when the detainee had denied charges of ties to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

In early October, Bakhouch recanted his testimony before an investigative magistrate and denied the terror charges, Chouiter said. Bakhouch pleaded not guilty at his most recent trial and, in the presence of a judge, again recanted his initial admissions.

“The U.S. responsibility for his welfare did not end when he was transferred to Algeria.”

Being held without contact to the outside world is considered an enforced disappearance and prohibited by international law, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights Ben Saul told The Intercept.

“A detainee in custody must be promptly given access to a lawyer and to communicate with family,” Saul said.

Algerian officials admit they did not allow him access to a lawyer or family calls until his 13th day of detention.

“The U.S. responsibility for his welfare did not end when he was transferred to Algeria,” Saul said. “It should be apparent that he should not suffer from any further victimization through the legal system. He has already paid a very heavy price in terms of his health and mental state, and he needs supportive measures of rehabilitation and reintegration, not more punishment.”

State Department “Bullshit”

With a possible end to the Biden administration looming in the next six months, State Department diplomats are running low on time to clean up the legal mess created by an era of rampant arbitrary U.S. detentions and CIA torture.

Thirty detainees remain at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, with 16 cleared for release and awaiting a resettlement deal. A trial for the men accused of plotting 9/11 has not yet begun. And former Guantánamo detainees scattered across the world battle both their mental scars and the stigma of being branded a “terrorist.”

Last July, a report from The Intercept detailed blistering correspondence between Gorman, Bakhouch’s lawyer, and members of the State Department’s Office of Guantánamo Affairs, where she fought to protect her client from the outcome now at hand. Gorman wrote to the State Department that, without help once he landed in Algeria, Bakhouch would be facing grave dangers.

“I fear my client might become homeless — or worse — locked up,” Gorman wrote in one email.

When Bakhouch wasn’t released following the initial interrogation period and found himself in a form of pre-trial detention, Gorman became enraged by what she said were the State Department’s “bullshit” assurances.

“They did not even know Saeed was sent to prison following his 12 days of interrogation. No one at the State Department was watching or paying attention to anything,” Gorman told The Intercept. “Then, the State Department started backpedaling about their role in Saeed’s transfer. They started claiming to me that once Saeed was released their hands were tied.”

Saul, the U.N. special rapporteur, said the U.S. bears responsibility for making sure its assurances are followed through on.

“Diplomatic assurances must always be effective, meaning that they must be accompanied by monitoring and safeguards to ensure they are enforced in practice, not just empty promises,” he said. “The greater the risk in a particular country of serious rights abuses, such as torture or arbitrary detention, the more caution is warranted in the use of safeguards, including whether a transfer should go ahead at all.”

U.S. Opposed Article 87

Bakhouch was eventually released last October, following pressure from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Ahead of the trial last Sunday, a group of U.N. experts that included Saul wrote under the auspices of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that the U.S. assurances were being flouted in Bakhouch’s case.

“His unjustified prosecution, detention on arrival, and imminent likely detention on the basis of these charges contradicts express guarantees by the U.S. and Algeria that he would be humanely treated on return to Algeria,” the experts group wrote. “The U.S. itself has called for repeal of article 87 for its excessive definition of terrorism.”

From his release in October until his recent court date, Bakhouch was living with his family, reunited after 20 years apart.

In safer environs, Bakhouch expressed remorse about panicking and affirming his interrogators’ allegations, Chouiter said, recounting his conversations with Bakhouch.

“They threatened me,” Bakhouch said, according to Chouiter’s recollection. “After I said that I had nothing do with this group and with bin Laden, they told me they would send me to some worse people to get information from me.”

As the court date drew closer, Gorman, Bakhouch’s U.S.-based lawyer since 2005, filed an affidavit which she hoped would sway the judge that he had not been truthful during his interrogation.

The “physical and psychological” torture her client was subjected to in Guantánamo was “so severe,” Gorman said in the affidavit, that she was not allowed to see the full recorded details despite her security clearance. The details she did manage access to, she told the court, included repeated beating while bound, threats of execution, sexual taunting, and humiliation.

“Mr. Bakhouch was not a terrorist,” Gorman wrote in the affidavit.

Why Bakhouch would fall apart under Algerian interrogation lies at the very heart of why Guantánamo and its military court still exists today: torture. Because of false confessions, the U.S. government has repeatedly concluded that torture doesn’t work to produce useful information.

Bakhouch, for his part, has a history of making false statement under the duress of interrogation, Gorman’s affidavit shows. He lied for years about his own nationality to try to get back home more quickly, complicating his case down the line.

The U.N. advocacy and help from lawyers turned out not to be enough. Last Sunday, a worried Bakhouch went before the judge in the afternoon and was led back into prison by evening, according to a source with direct knowledge of events who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.

“The fact of the matter is that there are no good options for these men,” Gorman said. “Very few of these men have landed on their feet. Most have been treated as pariahs, whether they are at home or in some random country, because of the U.S. propaganda.”

Bottom photo: Saeed Bakhouch poses for a photo outside the Dar al-Baida court before his trial on May 12, 2024, in Algiers. Courtesy of Justitia Center

The post After Torturing Him, U.S. Breaks Guarantees of Safety to Former Guantánamo Detainee appeared first on The Intercept.

The United States did not offer compensation to the family of a woman and her 4-year-old daughter who were killed in a 2018 drone strike in Somalia, according to a new Pentagon report on civilian casualties resulting from U.S. military operations.

The analysis, issued almost a year after its congressionally mandated deadline, shows that the Pentagon made no ex gratia payments during 2022, despite setting aside millions in funds for making amends.

The April 1, 2018 attack in Somalia killed at least three — and possibly five — civilians, including 22-year-old Luul Dahir Mohamed and her 4-year-old daughter Mariam Shilow Muse. A U.S. military investigation acknowledged the deaths of a woman and child but concluded their identities might never be known.

For more than five years, the family has tried to contact the U.S. government, including through U.S. Africa Command’s online civilian casualty reporting portal, but never received a response. Last year, I traveled to Somalia and spoke with seven of their relatives.

“They know innocent people were killed, but they’ve never told us a reason or apologized,” Abdi Dahir Mohamed, one of Luul’s brothers, told me last year. “No one has been held accountable.”

The Pentagon report — which was due on May 1, 2023, but was only released in late April — concluded that U.S. military operations in 2022 resulted in no civilian casualties. It also notes that the Defense Department did not make any ex gratia payments to civilians harmed in its operations in 2022 or the families of those killed in strikes from previous years. This follows one ex gratia payment made in 2021 and none issued in 2020.

“It is deeply disappointing that, despite significant funding and many requests from victims, the Department failed to offer even a single payment in 2022,” Annie Shiel, the U.S. advocacy director at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told The Intercept. “With the millions of dollars authorized by Congress, the Defense Department could have made hundreds of payments to civilian victims and survivors — including to the families in this case,” a reference to Luul and Mariam’s case.

“It is deeply disappointing that, despite significant funding and many requests from victims, the Department failed to offer even a single payment in 2022.”

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

After more than 17 years of drone strikes and commando raids in Somalia, the U.S. has carried out 288 declared attacks. U.S. Africa Command claims to have killed just five civilians in that period, including Luul and Mariam. (The military has never referred to the mother and daughter by name.) Airwars, the U.K.-based airstrike monitoring group, says the real number may be more than 3,000 percent higher.

In 2022, the Pentagon issued a blueprint for improving how it addresses noncombatant deaths called the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan. This was followed, last December, by long-awaited instructions establishing “policies, responsibilities, and procedures for mitigating and responding to civilian harm.” It directed the armed forces to address people and communities on the receiving end of military operations, including by “expressing condolences” and providing ex gratia payments to next of kin.

Congress appropriates millions of dollars annually — $15 million since 2020 — for the Defense Department to compensate families of civilians killed or injured in U.S. attacks, but the Pentagon has shown an aversion to confronting its mistakes. The military rarely makes compensation payments, even in cases as clear-cut as the 2018 strike in Somalia.

In late 2022, elected officials sent multiple letters to the Pentagon calling for amends to be made to victims of U.S. attacks. In December 2023, two dozen human rights organizations — 14 Somali and 10 international groups — specifically called on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to compensate Luul and Mariam’s family. This year, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Reps. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn; Barbara Lee, D-Calif.; and Jim McGovern, D-Mass., joined the effort.

The Defense Department missed the May 1, 2024, deadline for releasing its 2023 civilian casualty report.

“The 2022 report was almost a full year late, and the 2023 report is already overdue,” said Shiel. “That means we have no public visibility into whether DoD finally began making payments last year as it worked to implement the action plan, which commits the Department to improving how it responds to civilian harm.”

The post Pentagon Compensated Zero Civilian Victims in 2022 — Despite Evidence That the U.S. Killed a Mom and Child in Somalia appeared first on The Intercept.

The April 10 attack, the latest errant strike in a Nigerian counterterrorism campaign against militants and “bandits,” came as villagers prepared for Eid prayers marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

“The pattern of Nigeria’s military operations resulting in civilian casualties is deeply troubling.”

“Arriving at the scene, I saw children, men and women … were killed and trapped inside the collapsed buildings that were hit by a bomb,” Lawali Ango, the traditional leader of Dogon Daji village, told Reuters. (A Nigerian military spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, denied that civilians were killed in the April 10 strike.)

“The pattern of Nigeria’s military operations resulting in civilian casualties is deeply troubling,” Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., told The Intercept. “One of the biggest factors contributing to violent extremism is security sector violence against you or someone you know — so we’ll likely see the reverberations of this civilian harm for years to come unless there’s justice and accountability.”

Between 2000 and 2022, the U.S. provided, facilitated, or approved more than $2 billion in security aid, including weapons and equipment sales, to Nigeria, according to report by Brown University’s Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies and the Security Assistance Monitor at the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank. Over that time, the U.S. also carried out more than 41,000 training courses for Nigerian military personnel.

The U.S. has repeatedly raised the subject of civilian casualties with Nigeria’s government. Earlier this year, in the wake of an attack that killed more than 120 civilians, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly discussed the issue with Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu.

When pressed by The Intercept following Blinken’s visit on what actions the State Department would take if Nigeria’s military continued to kill civilians, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee said, at the time, “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals.”

Since the April 10 attack that killed more than 30 civilians, requests for comment from or to speak with Phee, while acknowledged, have gone unanswered, and the State Department failed to respond to questions on the record.

“Of course, as we always do when we meet with our Nigerian partners, we talk about how to minimize harm to civilians,” Phee told The Intercept in January, asserting that the U.S. seeks “to support Nigeria’s wish to make sure that the country is safe and secure for all of its citizens.”

Since it ramped up its U.S.-backed counterterror campaign in 2017, however, Nigeria has regularly attacked its own people.

U.S. Weapons and Civilian Deaths

A January 17, 2017, airstrike on a displaced persons camp in Rann, Nigeria — revealed by The Intercept to involve the U.S. — killed more than 160 civilians and seriously wounded more than 120 people.

In September 2021, the Nigerian Air Force admitted that it attacked a village, killing 10 civilians and injuring another 20. That April, a Nigerian military helicopter reportedly launched indiscriminate attacks on homes, farms, and a school.

A reported Nigerian airstrike on a village in neighboring Niger in February 2022 killed at least 12 civilians. Another attack in August 2022 left at least eight civilians dead. Witnesses and local officials said a December 2022 strike killed at least 64 people, including civilians. An attack in January 2023 killed 39 civilians and injured at least six others.

And a December 2023 strike killed more than 120 villagers celebrating Maulud, the birthday of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, according to Amnesty International.

A 2023 Reuters analysis of data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a U.S.-based armed violence monitoring group, found more than 2,600 people were killed in 248 airstrikes outside the most active war zones in Nigeria during the previous five years. Most victims were identified as “communal militia,” a catchall category that includes local self-defense forces, criminal gangs, and so-called bandits.

Nigeria’s government has frequently been accused of covering up civilian deaths, including running what a 2023 investigation by Nigeria’s Premium Times called “a systemic propaganda scheme to keep the atrocities of its troops under wraps.”

In 2021, the U.S. provided Nigeria 12 Super Tucano warplanes as part of a $593 million package that also included bombs and rockets. Last May, as part of the sale, the U.S. completed a $38 million project to construct new facilities for those aircraft.

The State Department also approved a 2022 sale to Nigeria of nearly $1 billion in AH-1Z attack helicopters and supporting munitions and equipment.

Last year, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Jacobs, the California Democrat, called on the Biden administration to scuttle the nearly $1 billion attack helicopter deal.

“We write to express our concern with current U.S. policy on and military support to Nigeria,” the lawmakers said, urging “a review of security assistance and cooperation programs in Nigeria, including a risk assessment of civilian casualties and abuses.”

Jacobs remains opposed to the sale and called for a thorough investigation of the April 10 strike, stressing the need for justice for the victims and survivors. “But more than that,” she said, “I will continue to push the United States to prioritize human rights and accountability in its relationship with the Nigerian military.”

The post Biden Says He Told Nigeria to Kill Fewer Civilians — but Nigeria Keeps Killing Lots of Civilians appeared first on The Intercept.

“We saw the bloody corpses riddled with bullets. We were able to save a 2-year-old child whose mother was killed shielding him with her body,” a 19-year-old witness, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Intercept. “The attackers were soldiers from our own army. They arrived on motorbikes and in vehicles, and they were armed with Kalashnikovs and heavy weapons.”

“The attackers were soldiers from our own army. They arrived on motorbikes and in vehicles, and they were armed.”

The mass killings came as the U.S. counterterrorism strategy in the West African Sahel crumbled, with U.S.-trained military officers launching a long string of coups, including in Burkina Faso itself. Despite the coups and massacres, the U.S. has not cut ties with Burkina Faso, and a contingent of U.S. personnel remain in-country to “engage” with the armed forces serving the ruling junta.

Burkinabè soldiers killed 44 people, including 20 children, in Nondin village, and 179 people, including 36 children and four pregnant women, in nearby Soro village in the north of the country on February 25, according to HRW. The mass killings are part of a long-running counterterrorism campaign aimed at civilians accused of collaborating with Islamist militants.

“The massacres in Nondin and Soro villages are just the latest mass killings of civilians by the Burkina Faso military in their counterinsurgency operations,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “The repeated failure of the Burkinabè authorities to prevent and investigate such atrocities underlines why international assistance is critical to support a credible investigation into abuses that may amount to crimes against humanity.”

The West African Sahel was once touted as an American foreign-policy success story, but persistent violence over the last decade intensified as the U.S. implemented its counterterror strategy.

Putsches by U.S.-linked military officers, prompted by spiking militant attacks, have brought with them seismic geopolitical changes. Niger, for example, the site of the most recent coup by U.S.-trained officers in the Sahel, severed its lon-gstanding ties with the American military and welcomed in Russian trainers.

“They Showed No Mercy”

The February massacres followed several attacks by Islamist militants which killed scores of soldiers and civilians, including an assault on a military base almost 15 miles from Nondin.

Witnesses in Nondin told HRW that a military convoy with over 100 Burkinabè soldiers arrived on motorbikes, pickup trucks, and armored cars about 30 minutes after a group of Islamist fighters on motorcycles passed near the village yelling “Allah Akbar!” The eyewitnesses said the soldiers went door to door, rounding up locals before gunning them down. Villagers said a similar sequence played out in Soro.

“Before the soldiers started shooting at us, they accused us of being complicit with the jihadists,” a 32-year-old survivor from Soro, who was shot in the leg, told HRW. “They showed no mercy. They shot at everything that moved, they killed men, women, and children alike,” said a 60-year-old farmer who witnessed the murders.

The Burkinabè Embassy in Washington did not respond to repeated requests from The Intercept to speak with the defense attaché or other officials.

The United States has assisted Burkina Faso with counterterrorism aid since the 2000s, providing funds, weapons, equipment, and American advisers, as well as deploying commandos on low-profile combat missions.

In 2018 and 2019, alone, the U.S. pumped a total of $100 million in “security cooperation” funding into Burkina Faso, making it one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in West Africa. U.S.-trained Burkinabè military officers have also repeatedly overthrown their government, in 2014, 2015, and 2022.

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Drone Strikes in Burkina Faso Killed Scores of Civilians

At the same time, militant Islamist violence skyrocketed. Across all of Africa, the State Department counted just 23 casualties from terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2003, combined. Burkina Faso alone suffered 7,762 fatalities from militant Islamist attacks last year, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. That represents an almost 34,000 percent spike.

In 2020, Simon Compaoré, who previously served as Burkina Faso’s interior minister and was then president of the ruling political party, admitted to me that the Burkinabè government was conducting targeted executions of terrorist suspects. “We’re doing this, but we’re not shouting it from the rooftops,” he said.

The democratically elected government of that time was overthrown in 2022 by the U.S.-trained Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who himself was ousted months later by Capt. Ibrahim Traoré. The extrajudicial killings continued.

“Significant human rights issues included credible reports of unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings by security forces,” reads the most recent U.S. State Department report on human rights in Burkina Faso, adding that “impunity for human rights abuses and corruption remained widespread.”

Earlier this year, The Intercept reported on three 2023 drone strikes by Burkina Faso’s government — targeting Islamist militants in crowded marketplaces and at a funeral — that killed at least 60 civilians and left dozens more injured.

U.S. Risking Complicity

The “Leahy laws” prohibit U.S. funding for foreign security forces implicated in gross violations of human rights. U.S. law also generally restricts countries from receiving military aid following military coups. The United States, however, has continued to provide training to Burkinabè forces, Gen. Michael Langley, the chief of Africa Command, or AFRICOM, told the House Armed Services Committee last year.

The U.S. provided millions of dollars in counterterrorism assistance to Burkina Faso in 2023, according to State Department data. Last month, a State Department press release touted the fact that the U.S. has given Burkina Faso “hundreds of millions of dollars in development and humanitarian assistance, as well as counterterrorism support to civilian security and law enforcement actors.”

Burkinabè soldiers also took part in Flintlock 2023, an annual exercise sponsored by U.S. Special Operations Command Africa. (Past Flintlock attendees, including Damiba, have overthrown the government.) 

“The United States should stop all military cooperation with Burkina Faso, otherwise they risk becoming complicit in the abuses,” a civil society activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of government retaliation, told The Intercept.

Last October, senior White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials told Traoré, now Burkinabè president, that working with Russia-linked Wagner Group mercenaries would irreparably damage his relationship with the U.S. In January, Russia’s Africa Corps — described by Russian officials as the successor to the Wagner Group following the death of its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin — deployed troops to Burkina Faso to, according to their post on Telegram, protect Traoré and battle terrorists.

Even with the raft of atrocities, coups, and transgressions against the Russian red line, a small contingent of U.S. military personnel are nonetheless deployed to Burkina Faso to, according to AFRICOM spokesperson Kelly Cahalan, “engage and interact” with the Burkinabè military and “keep lines of communication and dialogue open.”

On March 1, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called on the junta to conduct “complete investigations” of the massacres “with integrity and transparency and hold those responsible to account.” (The State Department failed to provide on-the-record responses to questions by The Intercept.)

The Burkinabè activist scoffed at the suggestion that the Burkinabè military could investigate itself and said that the junta would “erase” evidence of the massacres.

“The United States and the international community must demand concrete actions,” the activist told The Intercept. “Real repercussions are needed, such as sanctions against the perpetrators of the crimes, in order to deter them.”

Update: April 25, 2024
This story was republished after being removed following an inadvertent early publication.

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“The Biden Administration and the State Department are engaged in a massive cover-up,” Gaetz told The Intercept. “They are hiding the true conditions on the ground of U.S. diplomatic relations in Niger and are effectively abandoning our troops in that country with no help in sight.”

Last month, Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane, a spokesperson for Niger’s ruling junta, took to the national television network to denounce the United States and end the long-standing counterterrorism partnership between the two countries. Abdramane revoked his country’s agreement allowing U.S. troops and civilian Defense Department employees to operate in Niger, declaring that the security pact, in effect since 2012, violated Niger’s constitution.

The Pentagon has maintained in the month since that it is seeking clarification.

“The Biden Administration and the State Department are engaged in a massive cover-up.”

“The U.S. government continues to work to obtain clarification,” Gen. Michael Langley, the chief of U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, told The Intercept on Thursday.

Gaetz’s report contends that the U.S. Embassy in Niger, under Ambassador Kathleen FitzGibbon, is “covering up the failure of their U.S. diplomatic efforts in Niger.” The report says the embassy is “dismissing or suppressing” intelligence from the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, or OSI, as well as Special Operations Command Africa.

“When our AFRICOM leaders look to us to provide atmospherics on the ground, they go to the Embassy first and hear a watered down or false story than what is being reported,” according to one service member quoted in the report. “I know of at least 3 reports from OSI about Nigerien sentiment that have been discredited by the Embassy and turned out to be 100% true.” (The State Department denied the allegations but did not provide a statement on the record.)

Gaetz said, “They are suppressing intelligence because they don’t want to acknowledge that their multibillion-dollar flop for Niger to be centerpiece of their Africa Strategy has been a complete and total failure.”

In interviews conducted by Gaetz’s office, U.S. service members currently serving in Niger said they are, as the report put it, “functionally stranded” in the increasingly hostile country. The military officials said they are prohibited from conducting missions or from returning home at the scheduled end of their deployments.

“No flights are authorized by Niger to enter or exit the country in support of DoD efforts or requirements,” reads the report which notes that mail, food, equipment, and medical supplies “are being prevented from reaching” Air Base 201, the large U.S. drone base in the town of Agadez, on the southern fringe of the Sahara Desert.

“Some diplomatic clearances for military flights have recently been denied or not responded to, which has forced extended deployments in some cases,” Langley said, in a statement to The Intercept.  

Pentagon spokesperson Pete Nguyen told The Intercept that “sustainment” of U.S. personnel has continued through commercial means, and the Pentagon is in “discussions” with the junta “to approve clearances on our upcoming regularly scheduled flights.”

Military personnel said the blood bank at Air Base 201 is not being replenished, possibly jeopardizing troops in the event of a mass casualty situation.

Next month, critical medications will also run out for individual service members. U.S. personnel “have repeatedly reached out for assistance but their strategic higher headquarters such as AFRICOM routinely overlook their concerns and those of AB101’s higher chain of command, or simply do not provide relief or guidance,” reads the report, referring to Air Base 101, located at the main commercial airport in Niger’s capital, Niamey.

“The Biden administration needs to acknowledge that their plan in Niger has failed and they need to bring these troops home immediately,” Gaetz told The Intercept. “If there is no remedy between Niger and the United States before the end of the month, our troops will be in immediate danger.”

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The United States shot down more drones and missiles than Israel did on Saturday night during Iran’s attack, The Intercept can report. 

More than half of Iran’s weapons were destroyed by U.S. aircraft and missiles before they ever reached Israel. In fact, by commanding a multinational air defense operation and scrambling American fighter jets, this was a U.S. military triumph. 

The extent of the U.S. military operation is unbeknownst to the American public, but the Pentagon coordinated a multination, regionwide defense extending from northern Iraq to the southern Persian Gulf on Saturday. During the operation, the U.S., U.K., France, and Jordan all shot down the majority of Iranian drones and missiles. In fact, where U.S. aircraft originated from has not been officially announced, an omission that has been repeated by the mainstream media. Additionally, the role of Saudi Arabia is unclear, both as a base for the United States and in terms of any actions by the Saudi military.

In calculating the size of Iran’s attack and the overwhelming role of the United States, U.S. military sources say that the preliminary estimate is that half of Iran’s weapons experienced technical failures of some sort.

“U.S. intelligence estimates that half of the weapons fired by Iran failed upon launch or in flight due to technical issues,” a U.S. Air Force senior officer told The Intercept. Of the remaining 160 or so, the U.S. shot down the majority, the officer said. The officer was granted anonymity to speak about sensitive operational matters.

Asked to comment on the United States shooting down half of Iran’s drones and missiles, the Israel Defense Forces and the White House National Security Council did not respond at the time of publication. The Pentagon referred The Intercept to U.S. Central Command, which pointed to a press release saying CENTCOM forces supported by U.S. European Command destroyers “successfully engaged and destroyed more than 80 one-way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles (OWA UAV) and at least six ballistic missiles intended to strike Israel from Iran and Yemen.”

Israel says that more than 330 drones, low-flying cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles were launched by Iran, including some 30 Paveh-type cruise missiles, 180 or so Shahed drones, and 120 Emad intermediate-range ballistic missiles, as well as other types of weapons. All of the drones and cruise missiles were launched from Iranian territory, Israel says. Some additional missiles were also launched from inside Yemen, according to IDF data.

Most media reports say that none of the cruise missiles or drones ever entered Israeli airspace. According to a statement by IDF spokesperson Adm. Daniel Hagari, some 25 cruise missiles “were intercepted by IAF [Israeli Air Force] fighter jets outside the country’s borders,” most likely over Jordanian territory.

Israel’s statement that it shot down the majority of Iranian “cruise missiles” is probably an exaggeration. According to U.S. military sources and preliminary reporting, U.S. and allied aircraft shot down the majority of drones and cruise missiles. U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that the Royal Air Force Typhoons intercepted “a number” of Iranian weapons over Iraqi and Syrian airspace.

The Jordanian government has also hinted that its aircraft downed some Iranian weapons. “We will intercept every drone or missile that violates Jordan’s airspace to avert any danger. Anything posing a threat to Jordan and the security of Jordanians, we will confront it with all our capabilities and resources,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said during an interview on the Al-Mamlaka news channel.

French fighters also shot down some drones and possibly cruise missiles.

U.S. aircraft, however, shot down “more than” 80 Iranian weapons, according to U.S. military sources. President Joe Biden spoke with members of two F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft squadrons to “commend them for their exceptional airmanship and skill in defending Israel from an unprecedented aerial attack by Iran.” Two F-15 squadrons — the 494th Fighter Squadron based at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in the United Kingdom, and the 335th Fighter Squadron from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina — are forward deployed to the Middle East, at least half of the planes at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

Two U.S. warships stationed in the Mediterranean — the USS Carney (DDG 64) and the USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) — shot down at least six ballistic missiles, the Pentagon says. The War Zone is reporting that those ships may have fired Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) interceptors in combat for the first time. A U.S. Army Patriot surface-to-air missile battery in Erbil, Iraq, shot down at least one ballistic missile. Wreckage of an Iranian missile was also found outside Erbil, as well as in an open area outside the province of Najaf.

Iran’s attack marks the first time since 1991 that a nation state has attacked Israel directly. Contending with extremely long distances and utilizing scores of decoys and swarm tactics to attempt to overwhelm Middle East air defenses, Iran managed to hit two military targets on the ground in Israel, including Nevatim Air Base. According to the IDF, five missiles hit Nevatim Air Base and four hit another base. Despite the low number of munitions successfully landing, the dramatic spectacle of hundreds of rockets streaking across the night sky in Syria, Iraq, and Iran has left Tehran contented with its show of force. 

Iran “has achieved all its goals, and in our view the operation has ended, and we do not intend to continue,” Mohammad Bagheri, chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, said over the weekend. Still, he cautioned, “If the Zionist regime or its supporters demonstrate reckless behavior, they will receive a decisive and much stronger response.”

The U.S. coordinated the overall operation from the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, where the overall commander was Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, the air commander of CENTCOM. “We take whatever assets we have that are in theater … under our tactical control or in a direct support role across the joint force and the coalition, and we stitch them together so that we can synchronize the fires and effects when we get into that air defense fight,” Grynkewich told Air & Space Forces Magazine after the Iran attack. “We’re trying to stitch together partners in the region who share a perspective of a threat, share concern of the threats to stability in the region — which primarily emanate from Iran with a large number of ballistic missiles — and be in a position where we’re able to share information, share threat warning. And the ultimate goal is to get to a much deeper and fuller integration. We’ve made tremendous progress.”

In a call immediately following Iran’s attack, Biden reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “Israel really came out far ahead in this exchange” and warned of the “risks of escalation” — as if that hadn’t already happened.

Correction: April 16, 2024
A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to Mohammad Bagheri as the president of Iran. He is the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces.

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The Israeli bombing of an Iranian consular office in Damascus on April 1 was the first salvo in a new phase of a regional conflict between the two countries. The attack, which killed several senior Iranian military officials, took the conflict from proxy warfare to direct confrontation.

On Saturday night, Iran launched its long-expected response to Israel, targeting the country with hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles. The attacks, reportedly telegraphed in the days beforehand as part of backchannel negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, were mostly intercepted en route to Israel.

The first direct attack by a state military against Israel since Iraq’s Scud missile launches during 1991’s Gulf War, the Iranian salvo — slow, deliberate, and forewarned — appeared calculated not to escalate the situation. The same cannot be said of Israel’s strike against the Iranians in Syria.

While Israeli officials, not least Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have sought to portray the Jewish state as the victims of an unprovoked Iranian attack, it was their own deadly strike on the Damascus consulate that triggered the new phase of the conflict. Though the U.S. created the conditions that may have encouraged Netanyahu’s gambit, it was reportedly Israel, acting on its own behalf, without coordination with its allies, that precipitated the latest grave escalation.

Even Israel’s patron and closest partner, the U.S., indicated it had not been involved or aware of planning for the consulate attack. Following this weekend’s Iranian response, which did very limited damage, the U.S. cautioned patience and encouraged Israel to see the barrage as an end to the current standoff.

The reciprocal blows between Israel and Iran have now pushed the Middle East into dangerously uncharted waters, at a time when many U.S. policymakers are seeking to leave the region and refocus attention on Europe and east Asia.

Despite reported pleading from the Biden administration to seek a diplomatic off-ramp, Israeli officials are promising an escalated response to Iran. They are threatening to target military sites inside Iran, as well as sites tied to the country’s nuclear program, a longtime Israeli obsession.

The Iranians have said continuing this cycle of strikes would trigger another reciprocal attack against Israel, far broader in scope and less likely to be coordinated with the U.S. or other regional powers to minimize damage. The result could be a full-scale war between two powerful states, including one whose security is all but politically guaranteed by the U.S. military. In that light, the prospect of the U.S. “pivoting to Asia,” or even recommitting fully to the defense of Ukraine would likely become farcical.

The potential handcuffing of U.S. policy has not gone unnoticed in Washington. A report by NBC News on the morning after Iran’s strikes quoted three individuals close to Joe Biden as saying that the president “privately expressed concern that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to drag Washington into a broader conflict.”

Reaping What Is Sown

Despite Biden’s concerns, the U.S. is the one that created a moral hazard by encouraging Israel to act more recklessly. Israel’s decision to attack Iran’s consulate building, where it killed a number of top officials from the elite Quds Force, itself was unlikely to have happened without Netanyahu’s belief that he could count on U.S. support no matter what Israel does.

Who could blame him? There have been sudden U.S. shifts on the war in Gaza, and Biden apparently rejected further Israeli strikes against Iran, but American officials including the president have by and large struck a tone of total, unflinching support for Israel. Though this support has not always extended to Netanyahu himself, the strike against Damascus seemed to be a test of that distinction.

And the violent exchange with Iran also highlights a much wider chasm between the interests of the U.S. and Israel — and the countries’ leaders. The U.S. has material incentives to draw down its focus on the Middle East and does not want to fight another major war in the region, but for Israel and for Netanyahu personally, there are strong reasons to start a direct confrontation with Iran and its allies.

Since the start of its post-October 7 assault on Gaza, Israeli civilians have mostly abandoned the northern area of the country due to the nearby presence, across the Lebanese border, of fighters from the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Many Israeli security officials feel that a war with Hezbollah and by extension Iran is inevitable. They prefer a strategy of initiating one now on Israel’s terms while the U.S. still has a military presence in the region that could be forced into the fight.

From Netanyahu’s perspective, once the current war ends, he is likely to face serious political and legal problems inside Israel. Expanding the conflict to a regional one could delay his day of reckoning — or even change his personal fortunes entirely.

Israeli incentives for war with Iran should logically put it on a crash course with the U.S. political establishment. Yet the deep ideological, economic, and political ties that supporters of Israel have cultivated with U.S. politicians and security elites make it possible that the U.S. may wind up in a war with Iran, whether they like it or not.

It would not be a cakewalk. Iran is larger than Iraq, boasting vastly more sophisticated defenses and a huge web of regional military assets. A major war would not be limited in time or scope. At a moment when the U.S. is running short of munitions and funding to support Ukraine and is nervously eyeing China’s military buildup in east Asia, it is hard to think of worse timing for such a conflict, regardless of how opportune it may be for Israel.

Israeli officials are now reportedly debating whether to “go big” with strikes against Iran, or take a more measured response. Iran meanwhile has said that if Israel lashes out, it will hit back harder — ostensibly in a manner calculated to overwhelm Israeli air defenses. If that happens, Biden will have to confront the contradictions of a policy of embracing Israel and enabling its most extreme tendencies, while at the same time trying to do what is best for the U.S.

Contrary to the words of some sycophantic U.S. politicians, the interests of the two countries are not identical and, today, do not even appear to be aligned.

The post Israel and Israel Alone Kicked Off This Escalation — In a Bid to Drag U.S. Into War With Iran appeared first on The Intercept.

The regional war in the Middle East now involves at least 16 different countries and includes the first strikes from Iranian territory on Israel, but the United States continues to insist that there is no broader war, hiding the extent of American military involvement. And yet in response to Iran’s drone and missile attacks Saturday, the U.S. flew aircraft and launched air defense missiles from at least eight countries, while Iran and its proxies fired weapons from Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

The news media has been complicit in its portrayal of the regional war as nonexistent. “Biden Seeks to Head Off Escalation After Israel’s Successful Defense,” the New York Times blared this morning, ignoring that the conflict had already spread. “Iran attacks Israel, risking a full-blown regional war,” says The Economist. “Some top U.S. officials are worried that Israel may respond hastily to Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attacks and provoke a wider regional conflict that the U.S. could get dragged into,” says NBC, parroting the White House’s deception.

The Washington-based reporting follows repeated Biden administration statements that none of this amounts to a regional war. “So far, there is not … a wider regional conflict,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Thursday, in response to a question about Israel’s strike on the Iranian Embassy. Ryder’s statement followed repeated assertions by Iranian leadership that retaliation would follow — and even a private message from the Iranians to the U.S. that if it helped defend Israel, the U.S. would also be a viable target — after which the White House reiterated its “ironclad” support for Israel.

While the world has been focused on — and the Pentagon has been stressing — the comings and goings of aircraft carriers and fighter jets to serve as a “deterrent” against Iran, the U.S. has quietly built a network of air defenses to fight its regional war. “At my direction, to support the defense of Israel, the U.S. military moved aircraft and ballistic missile defense destroyers to the region over the course of the past week,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Saturday. “Thanks to these deployments and the extraordinary skill of our servicemembers, we helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles.”

As part of that network, Army long-range Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense surface-to-air missile batteries have been deployed in Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and at the secretive Site 512 base in Israel. These assets — plus American aircraft based in Kuwait, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia — are knitted together in order to communicate and cooperate with each other to provide a dome over Israel (and its own regional bases). The United Kingdom is also intimately tied into the regional war network, while additional countries such as Bahrain have purchased Patriot missiles to be part of the network.

Despite this unambiguous regional network, and even after Israel’s attack on Iran’s embassy in Syria earlier this month, the Biden administration has consistently denied that the Hamas war has spread beyond Gaza. It is a policy stance — and a deception — that has held since Hamas’s October 7 attack. “The Middle East region is quieter than it has been in two decades,” Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in an ill-timed remark eight days before October 7. “We don’t see this conflict widening as it still remains contained to Gaza,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said the day after three U.S. troops were killed by a kamikaze drone launched by an Iran-backed militia at a U.S. base in Jordan. Since then (and even before this weekend), the fighting has spread to Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Yemen.

As part of the regional war network, four American ships, part of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) battle group, have played a central role in thwarting Iran-backed attacks. The ships are equipped with long-range Standard surface-to-air missiles and the Phalanx close-in weapon system, a Gatling gun that serves as the ship’s last lines of defense against attack. All of the ships have been conducting offensive and defensive operations in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, focused on Houthi attacks (they all shot Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missiles at targets in Yemen on January 12).

According to maritime spotters and the Navy, the destroyer USS Gravely (DDG 107) has been conducting defensive and offensive operations in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since mid-March. It has been engaging Houthi drones and missiles fired from inside Yemen toward Israel and toward maritime traffic. The destroyer USS Mason (DDG 87) has also been operating in the Red Sea. Just on Tuesday, it targeted a Houthi anti-ship ballistic missile that was targeting the U.S. commercial ship M/V Yorktown, according to the Navy. The destroyer USS Laboon (DDG 58) arrived in the region in December and has been operating mostly in the Gulf of Aden. The guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) arrived around Christmas and has served as the main air defense command-and-control hub.

American ships have quietly called at ports in Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Djibouti (the port of Duqm in Oman has been the most often visited foreign port). Lebanon is also involved in the conflict as Israel and Hezbollah have traded attacks.

The White House has also said that U.S. fighter jets were involved in some of the shootdowns of Iranian missiles. Flight trackers noticed a U.S. Air Force refueling plane, stationed in Qatar, flying missions over Iraq during the Iranian attack. In total, according to CNN, around 170 drones, more than 30 cruise missiles, and more than 120 ballistic missiles were launched at Israel overnight Saturday. All told, US forces were responsible for over 100 interceptions of Iranian drones and missiles, according to Israeli officials.

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Units on alert, naval ships repositioning, bombers postured to fly, Marines ready to storm the beaches. These are all of the routines of a crisis that signals U.S. military readiness for war. But there’s another routine that often eludes Washington’s acknowledgment: the military’s own deployment schedule when it comes to units venturing out there into the real world. The schedule is sacrosanct. So while some might think the potential for war with Iran — right now — is high and the U.S. military is on high alert, the reality is that it’s business as usual.

On Friday, the Pentagon made vague statements that it is moving assets to the Middle East to express American displeasure and readiness should Iran attack Israel. President Joe Biden made a public threat toward Iran: “Don’t,” referring to any Iranian strike. And the administration trumpeted the presence of Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, commander of Central Command, or CENTCOM, in Israel, there to “consult” with America’s ironclad partner.

But as Washington hawks and the news media hold their breath for what they call an “imminent” strike overseen by Tehran on Israeli soil, the U.S. military in the Middle East is sticking to its regular schedule of soldier comings and goings, including the redeployment of a high-profile Marine battle group that returned to the U.S. after an eight-month voyage. 

In fact, thousands of Marines, Navy sailors, Army troops, and Air Force war fighters have cycled back stateside over the past few weeks and even since the Israeli attack on the Iranian Embassy compound in Syria on April 1. In a purely routine way, in accordance with existing plans, some half-dozen deployments to the Middle East have come to an end. For the armed services, maintaining soldier schedules is more important than geopolitics. And indeed, there’s no evidence that the military services take much notice of the contradiction between their schedules and a brewing escalation. They are more focused on trying to please service members, wives, and parents in their bids to recruit and retain enlisted people than they are on the Pentagon’s war game machinations.

Even the Army’s undertakers are calling it quits. According to a recent announcement, Army body-bag handlers returned from the Middle East this month. “The 54th Quartermaster Company is the Army’s only active-duty mortuary affairs unit,” the announcement reads. “The unit sent 29 Soldiers to Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates in support of a wide array of operations in the region. Today, we get to welcome back detachment number one, 29 of our best from CENTCOM,” the company commander Capt. Peter Kase said. 

Meanwhile, service members overseeing rescue operations relating to air and naval attacks by Yemen returned home this month. An announcement celebrating the accomplishments and return of the U.S. Air Force Capt. Araceli Saunders last week details her efforts while deployed in Saudi Arabia, including “providing airborne alert for Operation POSEIDON ARCHER enabling thirty-one coalition strikes on Yemeni bases” and “reducing the threat to international maritime shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.” 

Despite Houthi attacks from Yemen and Iran-backed militia strikes from Syria and Iraq, U.S. forces routinely cycle in and out of the Middle East. On March 16, more than 4,000 Marines and sailors with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit began their journey home from a deployment that was reoriented from pure training to direct support for American diplomacy and military readiness after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. 

Meanwhile, soldiers tasked with strengthening deterrence on land, according to the Army, have also ended their deployments. On February 8, artillery gunners with the Michigan Army National Guard returned from a deployment to Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates. According to the press release, the soldiers supported Operation Inherent Resolve, the military’s ongoing war against ISIS.

“Alpha Battery’s accomplishments during their deployment underscore the Michigan National Guard’s commitment to ensuring the safety and security of our nation,” a spokespeople said. “Their dedication and proficiency in operating the HIMARS [long-range missile] system have significantly advanced our strategic objectives in the region.”

The return of soldiers from CENTCOM follows an announcement this past week that the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, based out of Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, is reorganizing to better meet its own internal deployment requirements. There’s no mention of strategic reshuffling to meet imminent plans for war, but rather “to provide predictability for Airmen” in future deployments and rotations, in other words, to meet quality-of-life objectives.

As intelligence officials give dire predictions to the New York Times about Iran’s threat, and Israeli military officials warn citizens against hoarding in preparation for a volley of cruise missiles, Iran continues to go to great lengths to avoid an out-of-control conflict with its sworn adversary, and its hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

A Financial Times report from this week details Iran’s efforts to convey through diplomatic channels that it does not wish to see an escalation that stokes all-out war with Israel and the United States. This and other news media reports say that Iran is engaging the United States through diplomatic channels to find a response that both demonstrates deterrence in response to the April 1 strike, without starting a war. (The U.S. and Iran have been talking through Oman to avoid an appearance of direct negotiations.)

In a subtle nod to its view that it’s business as usual, the U.S. Navy quietly relinquished command of the Red Sea Combined Task Force 153, handing it over to an Italian counterpart at the beginning of April. “I am incredibly proud of all the hard work and dedication by CTF 153 staff and units at-sea in support of Operation Prosperity Guardian,” outgoing U.S. Navy commander Capt. David Coles said. “Their efforts have directly contributed to regional maritime security and freedom of navigation in the CTF 153 area of operations. … It is a true honor to hand over command to an incredibly strong maritime partner like Italy. I know the Task Force is in good hands, and look forward to celebrating CTF 153’s future accomplishments under Capt. Messina’s stewardship.”

If Iran attacks Israel or the United States, on the ground, the American military posture looks routine, nowhere near matching the feverish vibes coming out of Washington. From his hotel room in Tel Aviv, Kurilla undoubtedly is closer to the action with his cellphone on red alert. But his visit is purely symbolic with regard to Iran. The truth is that the U.S. “mission” in the Middle East right now is as much to dissuade Israel from escalating.

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The White House is worried that Iran might strike a U.S. target as part of a potential retaliation for Israel’s April 1 attack on its embassy in Damascus, Syria, according to notes from a meeting involving National Security Council officials earlier this week. Tehran has vowed that “Israel will be punished” for the Syria strike and the killing of Quds Force commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi. 

New concern about a potential Iranian strike comes even though the Biden administration has sought to distance itself from the Israeli airstrike, stressing that it had no advance knowledge of the operation.

“I don’t have anything more to say about the strike in Damascus, except that we weren’t involved in any way whatsoever,” NSC spokesperson retired Adm. John Kirby said on Monday. 

On Monday night, Iran conveyed to the Biden administration that if it involved itself in defending Israel were Tehran to undertake a retaliatory strike, it would consider the United States a viable target as well. The issue was discussed at a Tuesday NSC meeting, according to notes reviewed by The Intercept. (The NSC did not respond to a request for comment.)

At the Tuesday meeting, an NSC official conveyed high-level concerns that the administration did not want to publicly appear to be in any official dialogue with Tehran, with whom the U.S. does not have formal diplomatic relations.

Last Friday, four days after the Israeli airstrike, over a dozen Republican senators signed a letter accusing the Biden administration of undertaking a “strategy of appeasement” with Iran. 

Despite an-ever widening and escalating military action since the Gaza war began, the Biden administration has insisted that the war remains contained to Israel, despite attacks by Israel in Syria and Lebanon; despite repeated attacks by Houthi forces in Yemen and the retaliatory strike that have followed; and despite attacks and responses against U.S. forces in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. The strikes by the U.S. (and its coalition partners) are always described as taking place against “Iran-backed” organizations and militias.

In January, three American Army soldiers were killed by a kamikaze drone launched by an Iranian-backed militia at a U.S. base in Jordan called Tower 22. There have been over 150 attacks on U.S. Middle East forces since the Israel–Hamas war began. U.S. Central Command, the Pentagon’s Middle East combatant command, has launched a seemingly endless barrage of strikes on Iranian-backed targets throughout the region, as well as undertaken naval and air attacks in and around Yemen.

The position of the Biden administration has consistently been that it doesn’t see any of this as escalation. “We don’t seek a wider war with Iran,” Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said the day after the three U.S. troops were killed in Jordan. “We don’t seek further conflict, we don’t want to see this widen out into a regional conflict.”

Since then, the U.S. has quietly conducted talks with Iranian officials to seek to avoid direct confrontation between the two countries’ armed forces, according to CNN and other media reports. On Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Biden and his team are working to prevent escalation with Iran in the Middle East.

On Wednesday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Israel “must be punished and it shall be.” That same day, Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Israel Katz said his country would respond with a direct attack. “If Iran attacks from its own territory, Israel will respond and attack in Iran,” Katz posted on X. Since April 2023, the U.S. and Israel have been in close cooperation in sharing and building common Iran contingency plans.

The post Biden Administration Fears Iran Might Target U.S. Forces Over Israel Strike appeared first on The Intercept.

In light of the deadly ISIS-K attack on the Crocus City Hall in Russia last month, the homeland security complex is newly focusing on a high-profile Islamic State attack inside the United States, according to new government reports and statements. For seven months, Hamas has been the primary focus of federal counterterror operations, with the FBI anticipating a terrorist strike intended to highlight America’s military support for Israel.

“I see blinking lights everywhere I turn,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in December, addressing post-October 7 domestic threats and a new obsession with Hamas that came out of the Gaza war.

Within the past week though, members of Congress are demanding that the government provide classified briefings on the ISIS-K threat, expressing “serious concern” about the group’s reach. The New Jersey homeland security department, one of the country’s most active counterterrorism hubs, has also produced an intelligence brief this week warning about potential ISIS-K attacks. And the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has produced a hand-wringing report about the current U.S. capability to conduct “‘over-the-horizon’ counterterrorism operations” in Afghanistan to thwart the group’s future operations. 

In a way, the shift from Hamas to ISIS-K is one welcomed by the terror fighters because the focus eliminates all of the tricky politics associated with the Gaza war, especially the difficulty the FBI and others have had separating pro-Palestinian sentiments from support for Hamas. And, not coincidentally, all of the focus on pro-Trump so-called domestic extremists. The Al Qaeda-like attack in Moscow also harkens back to a familiar threat and the 20-year war for the federal government, one even emanating from Afghanistan.

ISIS-K, known as Islamic State Khorasan, is the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate that is now active in south Asia and the Caucasus. The name Khorasan comes from ancient Persian and refers to the region that encompasses Afghanistan and northeastern Iran, and portions of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan. Surviving fighters from Al Qaeda have congregated under the banner of ISIS-K. The Director of National Intelligence labels ISIS-K, founded in 2015, as one of ISIS’s “most lethal branches.”

In some ways, ISIS-K is the actual successor to Al Qaeda, which introduced high-profile attacks in northwest Africa and Yemen, culminating in 9/11. Before the assault in Moscow which killed 140 last month, ISIS-K had attack the U.S. directly when during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan it sent a suicide bomber that killed 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans at the Kabul airport. Since assuming command in 2020, the group’s leader, Sanaullah Ghafari, has pledged further attacks, and he has taken on the ISIS goal of trying to create a physical Islamic caliphate.

Beginning in 2022, ISIS-K has also increased its messaging targeted on the United States. The ISIS Al-Naba newspaper commented on the initial indictment of former President Donald Trump, claiming “American unrest is looming on the horizon” and that “this is taking place by the arrangement of Allah.” ISIS-K’s English-language Voice of Khurasan commented on the raid at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, claiming “America is a ‘banana republic’ corrupt at a level not seen before.” ISIS-K has also commented on gun violence, highlighting gun killings in America and calling them “tit for tat” for U.S. foreign policy failures.

Last month, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, commander of Central Command, said that ISIS-K “retains the capability and the will to attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months with little to no warning.” When asked whether the military is conducting sufficient strikes on ISIS-K in Afghanistan given the U.S. withdrawal, Kurilla told Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., “in a classified setting, ma’am, I can talk about where we are in terms of the find, fix, and finish on them.”

In a April 3 intelligence brief from the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness obtained by The Intercept, the agency warns, “The ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K) attack in Russia highlights the group’s aspiration to become the most active ISIS affiliate, conduct global attacks, and inspire homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) to threaten the U.S. and Europe.”

In the same breath, the brief acknowledges that ISIS itself remains “a low threat to New Jersey and the surrounding region” and that the group has never “successfully conducted a directed attack within the U.S.” thanks to global efforts, such as that of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. The brief says that coalition and U.S. operations have “diminished ISIS’s military capability, territorial control, leadership, financial resources, and online influence.”

“The largest threat from ISIS still comes from [Homegrown Violent Extremists] who consume ISIS propaganda, radicalize, [and] often pledge allegiance to the group,” the brief concludes. (The FBI says that the majority of foreign-inspired terrorists in the U.S. continue to be ISIS-affiliated, as they have been for most of the past decade. On Saturday, the FBI arrested 18 year old Scott Mercurio, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, for planning to attack local churches and allegedly providing material support to ISIS. “This case should be an eye-opener to the dangers of self-radicalization, which is a real threat to our communities,” Shohini Sinha, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Salt Lake City field office said.)

The new threat posed by ISIS-K was further amplified in a recent letter sent by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Katie Britt, R-Ala., demanding a classified briefing on the ISIS-K threat. 

“ISIS-K’s recent attacks further highlight their ability to strike around the globe. Their operations include a suicide bombing in Iran in January of 2024 and a massacre at a concert hall in Moscow in March,” the senators wrote. “Further, ISIS-K planned attacks against civilians in Germany and the Netherlands were also thwarted. It is evident the potential and desire for strikes by ISIS-K around the globe, including against the United States, remains significant. As former Director of Intelligence for CENTCOM, retired Army Major General Mark Quantock recently stated, ‘The U.S. remains target No. 1 for ISIS-K.’”

Late last month, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also said that Wray confirmed to him that an ISIS-linked smuggling network was penetrating the U.S. southern border. Rubio told ABC News that ISIS-K had “reconstituted itself as we warned would happen when we had this disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. One of the reasons why we didn’t want to withdraw precipitously is because you gave them operating space to reorganize themselves and plan externally.”

The post Terror Hunters Trade Hamas for ISIS-K, Perhaps With Some Relief appeared first on The Intercept.

As the NCAA finishes up March Madness, another type of madness is unfolding as the U.S. military retools its weapons of mass destruction response apparatus to focus not on attacks by familiar foreign terror groups like Al Qaeda or ISIS, but by American citizens. 

Late last month, for the first time ever, the National Guard conducted an exercise simulating a frantic search for a nuclear dirty bomb at a basketball and hockey arena in Trenton, New Jersey. What made the exercise different from hundreds of such similar war games held since 9/11 is that purely domestic terrorists were identified as the perpetrators.

“The FBI has just received intelligence that a well-resourced domestic terrorist group has planted bombs, including one with cesium-137 — a radioactive isotope — in the arena,” the military said about the scenario for the exercise. “The clock is ticking.”

The CURE Insurance Arena in Trenton is a multipurpose facility able to seat 8,000. The arena aims to attract more college basketball matches, having hosted Princeton vs. Rutgers in November.

The mock nuclear materials search took place from March 25-28 and involved National Guard “Civil Support Teams” from New Jersey, Delaware, and Idaho; other military teams; city, county, and state police and hazardous material teams; and federal government agencies, including the local FBI field office and experts from the national Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate.

Established during the Clinton administration in 1998, the National Guard Civil Support Teams are charged with “consequence management” in the event of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear — known as CBRN — incident. The 20- to 25-member teams can also be assigned to “incidents of national significance” and “national security events” that involve intentional and unintentional CBRN releases. They have been deployed on standby for the Super Bowl and Boston Marathon, as well as for NCAA tournaments. The teams were extensively employed during Covid-19.

The exercise scenario last month resembles the feverish plot of the post-9/11 TV series “24,” which dramatized the concept of a ticking time bomb and the extraordinary measures it might justify. (“24” also had its own sports tie-in, having aired its pilot episode right after the Super Bowl.) But “24” portrayed the dirty bomb plots as being masterminded by foreign terror groups similar to those that carried out 9/11. By pointing the finger at a “domestic terrorist group” — that is, Americans — the U.S. military outpaces not just Hollywood, but also the facts.

Though the FBI says in its fiscal year 2025 budget request to Congress that during 2023, its Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate “disrupted 42 incidents; made 62 arrests; and had 43 indictments, 56 sentencings and 56 convictions,” none involved actual nuclear materials or such a dirty bomb. There’s no evidence that any domestic terrorist group has ever been well-resourced enough to construct a nuclear dirty bomb. But that hasn’t stopped Washington from building on January 6 to feed its current domestic extremism obsession and fearmongering about it.

In November, the Washington-based Stimson Center published a report, “The Threat from Within,” that hypes the purported insider threat to nuclear security posed by “domestic violent extremists.” The report is funded by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. The Stimson Center also receives funding from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (the Defense Department agency charged with weapons of mass destruction).

“The January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol revealed the flaws in a system designed to weed out unsuitable candidates for sensitive work protecting nuclear materials, weapons, facilities, technology and personnel,” the Stimson report’s executive summary says. 

The report acknowledges a shift from foreign to domestic terrorism, saying, “Rather than focusing on international extremists with foreign ideological motives, federal agencies and law enforcement have begun to recognize the prevalence of domestic violent extremist threats to national security and critical infrastructure, including the nuclear sector.”

As an example of the domestic extremist threat to nuclear security, the Stimson reports cites the case of Ashli Babbitt. An Air Force veteran who participated in the storming of the Capitol building before being killed by a law enforcement officer, the report points to Babbitt’s employment at a nuclear plant as “​​troubling — especially when considering the appeal of nuclear infrastructure as a target for extremists.”

That’s of course a long shot from saying Babbitt had any intention of targeting that nuclear infrastructure — which there’s no evidence for — in order to, say, construct a dirty bomb. 

But that won’t stop the government from playing its own game.

The post Feds Search Basketball Arena for Domestic Nuclear Terrorists in Their Own March Madness appeared first on The Intercept.

“If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him,” Sun Tzu wrote in the 4th century, one of those warfare aphorisms that the modern-day U.S. Army has adopted as part of its psychological operations career group. “Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant,” the Army says in a recruiting video released last year. But it is the Army that is pretending to be strong. A devastating new Defense Department inspector general report finds that its own psyops ranks are critically short at a time when Washington is obsessed with stoking influence against America’s many adversaries.

The IG report, “Evaluation of the DoD Military Information Support Operations Workforce” finds that the Army, the primary Defense Department proponent for battlefield influence and deception, has failed to staff its own psyops units at a time when the Pentagon struggles with fighting Russian, Chinese, and Iranian disinformation campaigns, particularly about U.S. military operations and bases.

A December 2010 secretary of defense memorandum, issued during the Obama administration, discontinued the use of the term “psyops” and replaced it with Military information Support Operations, or MISO. The memo stated that the term “psyop” had become misleading and, “although psyop activities rely on truthful information, credibly conveyed, the term psyop tends to connote propaganda, brainwashing, manipulation, and deceit.” The memo noted that for that reason, the Pentagon would “no longer use the term psyop to describe activities (in peacetime or during combat operations) that are intended to influence foreign audiences.” Nonetheless, the Army continues to use the term “psyop” or psyops when referring to its units and to the overall career field.

(The term “information warfare” was also replaced with “information operations” during the same time period. Seeking to soften the terminology of counterterrorism, the Obama administration also sought to change the name of the Global War On Terror to Overseas Contingency Operations, a term that never stuck. The administration also introduced the euphemism “violent extremist” instead of terrorist, a term that is now applied to domestic activists with no connection to any foreign power or influence.)

In its March report, the inspector general found that the Army’s four Psychological Operations Groups (two active duty and two in the reserves) operated with only 60 percent of their authorized strength. It also found that one third of Army Reserve psyops detachments, feeder organizations sprinkled around the country used to beef up the psyops groups during mobilization, exist only on paper, most being completely unmanned. And only a quarter of the detachments had assigned and qualified commands (captains) required to pursue their missions.

According to the report, MISO and other types of information operations are the main way the military responds to adversaries without engaging in armed combat. And yet despite this allegedly critical function, the IG found that “the Army does not have sufficient MISO-qualified military personnel in its Army Reserve and active component MISO units or serving in MISO positions on joint force command staffs to meet the increasing demand.”

The inspector general also found another problem: a comprehensive study of the entire psyops branch, with soldiers spread across the active duty component and the reserve components (Army Reserve and National Guard) has not been completed in 20 years.

Psyops is a military term that refers to efforts to influence enemy battlefield perceptions through leafleting, radio and television broadcasting and deception. Such operations, as Sun Tzu attests, are as old as organized warfare itself. In recent decades, with the growth of online news and communications, ubiquitous cellphone use, and social media, psyops has expanded. That expansion, and the nature of how information circulates, reaches far beyond the battlefield. Though there are national “influence” operations against countries such as Russia, China, and Iran that are run by the State Department and the intelligence agencies, psyops still generally refers to battlefield use.

At a time when the military says that there is “increasing demand” for psyops, it is phasing out psychological operations roles to make room for newer priorities, according to an internal Army paper. “We needed to reduce 32,000 spaces to both shrink overall structure and make room for about 7,500 new billets for emerging efforts like directed energy, the Mobile Short Range Air Defense program, and multi-domain task force teams,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy A. George wrote in February, recommending a reduction of psyops soldiers. 

Reducing the number of soldiers allocated to “special operations,” which psyops is a part of, is not without controversy. According to recent reporting, the head of Special Operations Command Gen. Bryan Fenton is fighting the Army plan, taking his complaint up the chain of command to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

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In congressional testimony last month, Fenton said that MISO soldiers and units “are indispensable in 21st century warfare, which includes the development of critical information force capabilities such as civil affairs and psychological operations” adding that “MISO [the operations themselves] to counter strategic competitors have more than tripled in the past three years — comprising more than 60% of SOF’s [special operations forces] worldwide MISO activities in FY 2023.” He also pointed to the Joint MISO WebOps Center that helps coordinate combatant commands’ efforts to actively engage “foreign audiences to illuminate and counter hostile propaganda and disinformation.”

The national and regional WebOps centers maintain overt pro-U.S. websites and social media accounts that publish propaganda, but where the connection to the Pentagon is obscured or hidden in the fine print.

Despite Fenton’s push to preserve unfilled positions conducting the Army’s MISO, recent revelations about the Pentagon’s psyops call into question just how effective these programs really are. 

In 2022, an extensive report by the Washington Post revealed widespread concern inside DOD that psychological operations were being waged both recklessly and ineffectively by the armed services. The report was spurred by research from the Stanford Internet Observatory which detailed over 150 instances of Facebook and Twitter removing accounts linked to U.S. military influence campaigns.

The Pentagon also has pushed for new powers to fight adversaries in cyberspace. The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act gave the Defense Department a green light to engage in offensive psyops campaigns, including clandestine operations that align with the same definition as covert, meaning that the armed forces can carry out influence operations that deny an American connection, according to an analysis by Lawfare. 

As the Post detailed, after the congressional authorization, an unnamed defense official said, “Combatant commanders got really excited” and were “eager to utilize these new authorities. The defense contractors were equally eager to land lucrative classified contracts to enable clandestine influence operations.” 

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State Department Cut Funding for Controversial “Iran Disinfo” Project — but Kept Working With Its Creators

Some of these operations involved anti-Russia narratives describing Russia’s war in Ukraine as imperialist and attempting to shift popular sentiment toward support for Ukraine. Another account apparently targeting Iranian citizens reposted content from Voice of America and Radio Free Europe in Farsi. One account spread misinformation that claimed that relatives of deceased Afghan refugees were reporting that bodies being returned from Iran had missing internal organs. The latter tweet would be in violation of CENTCOM’s psyops directives, according to the Post. 

Researchers at Stanford ultimately found that despite the dozens of Defense Department obscured accounts spreading misinformation, the effect on foreign populations was far less than information conveyed overtly from self-identified U.S. sources.

“All warfare is based on deception,” Sun Tzu says. As the inspector general report demonstrates, there is a lot of deception going on to convince the American public that military psyops is a good investment. That campaign seems to have been successful.

The post New Report Reveals Dirty Secret of Army Psychological Operations appeared first on The Intercept.

U.S. intelligence skews its findings to find favor with both Republican and Democratic policymakers, including former presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama, a sweeping new study by the Pentagon-backed RAND Corporation finds. The study draws on interviews, some anonymous, with nearly a dozen current and former U.S. intelligence officials and policymakers.

Despite the popular “deep state” characterization of the intelligence community as a rogue army running roughshod over elected leaders, the study concludes the exact opposite. It portrays an intelligence community that naturally tilts its reports and forecasts to curry favor with presidents and their high-level policymakers in Washington, regardless of party or issue. 

“Policymakers most frequently introduce bias in intelligence assessments from a desire to minimize the appearance of dissent, while the IC” — intelligence community — “tends to introduce bias through self-censorship,” the report says.

The study, “Has Trust in the U.S. Intelligence Community Eroded? Examining the Relationship Between Policymakers and Intelligence Providers,” was sponsored by the Pentagon.

From 9/11 to January 6, there’s hardly a shortage of intelligence failures to properly assess the big picture or anticipate crises, leading to a decline in trust by policymakers, some of whom have decried the intelligence community as a monolithic “deep state” outside of their control. But the study suggests that these policymakers often have themselves to blame for pressuring the intelligence community to come to certain conclusions in line with their political interests — in many cases successfully. 

“Through his time in office, President Trump and other administration officials consistently sought to influence — and, in some cases, bias — intelligence,” the study finds. Interviewees cited almost a dozen such examples, some unsurprising (“Russian interference in the 2016 and 2020 elections,” the Muslim travel ban, and the characterization of “antifa”) but others less obvious (“mass shootings” and “the SolarWinds hack”).

Far from the Hollywood picture of intelligence operatives as ruthless Jason Bourne types, interviewees complained about the pressure analysts and management faced from White House policymakers, with one likening it to bullying.

The “culture of fear was real,” one former intelligence official told RAND. “The IC gets tired of being bullied, then they withdraw.”

“Individuals looked to avoid conflict and please political masters,” the study says of the intelligence community analysts and officials, adding that the CIA and other agencies have “an incentive to elicit positive feedback from policymakers” in order to “maintain [their] relevance.”

Across multiple administrations, this dynamic of fear appears to have infected the highest echelons of the intelligence community. Former CIA Director Gina Haspel declined to push back on Trump’s equivocations regarding the intelligence community’s conclusion that Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the study notes. (Haspel had reportedly been ordered by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to attend a congressional briefing where she could have challenged Trump’s statements. She didn’t attend.)

The report identifies Russian meddling in elections as among the most prominent scenarios in which the Trump administration pushed to influence the outcome of intelligence analysis. 

“With election interference, there were attempts to directly impact/change what the intelligence said,” a former official told RAND. “The IC was going to say that Russia did something, but policymakers would insist on adding more language, like something else about Iran.”

Another former official described election security as “the third rail of intelligence topics,” describing congressionally mandated intelligence reports on foreign interference as “an awkward process.” 

Ironically, despite Trump’s repeated insinuations of a “deep state” bent on undermining him, the very intelligence agencies ended up watering down assessments in order to avoid confrontations. As the study observes, “IC analysts looked to avoid conflict with policymakers and avoid charges of being part of the ‘deep state.’” 

The intelligence community’s deference to its political masters was by no means confined to the Trump administration. One former official told RAND that the “process always involves some degree of give and take between analysts and policymakers.” Indeed, the report provides a number of examples of intelligence bias during the Obama administration.

John A. Gentry, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst during the Obama administration, is quoted as saying that superiors told analysts to avoid “specifically identified terms that might trigger criticism of administration policy,” the study notes. Gentry also said that during the Obama years, intelligence analysis suffered from “politicization by omission”: leaving out issues from regular updates or assessments “because the results might displease superiors.”

In 2015, the year before Trump was elected, a survey of the members of the U.S. Central Command — the Pentagon’s combatant command for the Middle East — found that over 65 percent of respondents believed that their analysis was suppressed or distorted in the face of evidence due to editorial disagreement, politicization, or a mismatching with existing analytic lines, the study also notes.

Another example was alleged by a former official at the highest levels of the Obama administration. Obama’s former CIA Director Michael Hayden, the report notes, has written that the community turned a blind eye to Russian information operations due to the administration’s efforts to broker new diplomatic relations with Moscow. Not until 2015 did the U.S. come to grips with Russian efforts, by then just a year out from the 2016 elections famously marred by Russian meddling.

Clearly the intelligence community tilts its findings; but rather than in the direction of Langley, the Pentagon, or any intelligence agency, RAND concludes that it largely tilts toward the White House and its army of political appointees. 

“The RAND report provides an accurate picture of how much the intelligence-policy relationship sometimes departs depressingly far from the ideal of intelligence providing unbiased analysis to policymakers who use it to inform their decision-making,” Paul Pillar, a former national intelligence officer who is now a fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security Study as well as the Quincy Institute, told The Intercept. 

“The report shows the variety of ways in which policymakers who are determined to use intelligence not to inform decisions but instead to sell their already established policies can pollute the process, ranging from blatant arm-twisting to subtle effects on the minds of intelligence officers who do not want to rock the boat,” Pillar said.

The post Spy Agencies Skewed Intel to Please Trump, and Obama Too appeared first on The Intercept.