Fascinating reads in Global Post and the Washington Post about the history and location of one of the CIA’s infamous black sites in Poland during the early years of GWOT.
Check out other reporting about black sites from the New Yorker, the Daily Beast, and the New York Review of Books.
The Malaysia Airlines 370 story keeps getting stranger… The latest in the New York Times:
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The investigation into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has shifted to include anyone on board with a navigation or aircraft background in response to evidence that the plane was deliberately diverted from its route and, after communication was lost, navigated by someone with deep experience at the controls.
“In view of this latest development, the Malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board,” Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia said at a news conference on Saturday.
This new phase of the investigation has brought new scrutiny to the lives of two people who certainly had those skills: the pilot and first officer, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, both Malaysian citizens — although neither has been declared a suspect in the plane’s disappearance. Investigators are also apparently searching the passenger list for anyone else with similar skills who might have rerouted the plane, willfully or under coercion.
During 9/11 and the immediate aftermath, U.S. intelligence was able to piece together fairly quickly who the hijackers were and establish their ties to al Qaeda, based on passenger manifests and phone calls from the hijacked planes. In this case, there have been no communications from the hijacked plane, so intelligence officials and presumably the media only have the passenger manifests to work with. If there is any conclusive proof that a passenger or crew member had means and motive to do something like this, it should turn up fairly quickly due to the considerable investigative resources being put into this by multiple governments and news organizations.
There is a long and infamous history of airplane hijackings around the world, with many of the most famous cases happening during the 1960s and 1970s. The tactical appeal of airplane hijackings can be summed up in two reasons: 1) mobility to go wherever the hijackers want, and 2) inaccessability and inescapability. Nobody will be able to storm a plane or try to get off it while it’s in the air – with exceptions to Steven Seagal and D.B. Cooper. The conventional wisdom of airplane hijackings – that the hijackers are taking hostages to achieve a rational political objective with an outcome that would ensure their own survival – was turned on its head by the events of 9/11.
If it was a hijacking, the deviation from the norm from hijackings of the past as of this writing is the lack of anybody claiming responsibility or making some type of political demand or other in exchange for the safety of the hostages. Assuming the Central Asia flight path theory is correct, that might help narrow the nationality or political agenda of possible suspects.
One scenario that I had considered a possibility – but has seemingly been ruled out at this point – is something akin to the Payne Stewart crash: that the aircraft lost cabin pressurization and kept flying off course until it ran out of fuel and crashed in the water somewhere.
In a single frame, cartoonist Milt Priggee manages to describe the situation over Syria:
Reminds me of this scene from a John Woo movie. I nominate John Travolta for the role of Assad.
According to J.M. Berger, Al Qaeda has taken to Twitter to solicit feedback for media ops using the hashtag اقتراحك_لتطوير_اﻹعلام_الجهادي (which, when run through Google translator, comes out as “Suggestion _ development _ Media _ jihadist”), which is now being spammed with parody tweets by Berger and others. Click on the hashtag in Berger’s tweet to watch the fun.
The Daily Beast reporting today:
The crucial intercept that prompted the U.S. government to close embassies in 22 countries was a conference call between al Qaeda’s senior leaders and representatives of several of the group’s affiliates throughout the region.
The intercept provided the U.S. intelligence community with a rare glimpse into how al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, manages a global organization that includes affiliates in Africa, the Middle East, and southwest and southeast Asia.
Several news outlets reported Monday on an intercepted communication last week between Zawahiri and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of al Qaeda’s affiliate based in Yemen. But The Daily Beast has learned that the discussion between the two al Qaeda leaders happened in a conference call that included the leaders or representatives of the top leadership of al Qaeda and its affiliates calling in from different locations, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence. All told, said one U.S. intelligence official, more than 20 al Qaeda operatives were on the call.
To be sure, the CIA had been tracking the threat posed by Wuhayshi for months. An earlier communication between Zawahiri and Wuhayshi delivered through a courier was picked up last month, according to three U.S. intelligence officials. But the conference call provided a new sense of urgency for the U.S. government, the sources said.
Al Qaeda members included representatives or leaders from Nigeria’s Boko Haram, the Pakistani Taliban, al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and more obscure al Qaeda affiliates such as the Uzbekistan branch. Also on the call were representatives of aspiring al Qaeda affiliates such as al Qaeda in the Sinai Peninsula, according to a U.S. intelligence official. The presence of aspiring al Qaeda affiliates operating in the Sinai was one reason the State Department closed the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, according to one U.S. intelligence official. “These guys already proved they could hit Eilat. It’s not out of the range of possibilities that they could hit us in Tel Aviv,” the official said.
Al Qaeda leaders had assumed the conference calls, which give Zawahiri the ability to manage his organization from a remote location, were secure. But leaks about the original intercepts have likely exposed the operation that allowed the U.S. intelligence community to listen in on the al Qaeda board meetings.
Fascinating read, but I’m surprised al Qaeda would get one – let alone multiple – leader on a conference call, given the NSA’s well-documented technical capabilities in hacking or intercepting electronic communications even before the Edward Snowden leaks. Given the relentless pressure being placed on them by U.S. and allied military and intelligence services, I would assume they’d resort to paper and smoke signals for their communications from here on out.
As a child of the 80s, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out my favorite quote from the story:
“This was like a meeting of the Legion of Doom,” one U.S. intelligence officer told The Daily Beast, referring to the coalition of villains featured in the Saturday morning cartoon Super Friends.
Seriously, Iron Koala is the name of a nuclear proliferation exercise chaired by the Australian government:
Ever since the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC in 2010 and the follow up in Seoul, South Korea earlier this year, nuclear security has been top of the agenda for world leaders.
Australia has a strong presence in this arena, as exemplified by ANSTO’s recent hosting of a well-attended Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) activity here in Sydney. Known as Iron Koala, the exercise was organised by the GICNT Nuclear Forensic Working Group of which Australia is the Chair. Iron Koala participants (pictured outside the ANSTO Discovery Centre) came from many professions and included: governmental policy makers, law enforcement officers, nuclear regulators and nuclear forensics technical experts
The purpose of the event was to increase awareness that there needs to be legislated, regulated and practiced information sharing between countries and professions, in order to successfully combat nuclear trafficking.
Iron Koala was hailed as extremely successful by the attendees and its timeliness was demonstrated by the fact that it attracted 79 delegates from 24 nations with strong participation from countries in our region.
Iron Koala participants came from many professions and included: governmental policy makers, law enforcement officers, nuclear regulators and nuclear forensics technical experts. This breadth of expertise allowed the participants to better understand each other’s requirements and language, and to forge new communication networks.
Entrance to Auschwitz concentration camp, August 2008
The Atlantic just published my story about Witold Pilecki, a member of the Polish resistance during World War II who volunteered for an assignment inside Auschwitz. Check it out.
Also, I would highly recommend buying a copy of The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery, an English translation of Pilecki’s report about his time in the camp.
Hackers leak Assad’s astonishing office emails
Hundreds of emails from the office of Bashar al Assad have been leaked by the hacker group Anonymous.By Phoebe Greenwood, Tel Aviv
4:30PM GMT 07 Feb 2012
The group used the simple password “1234” to log into the mail accounts of several of the Syrian president’s closest aids.
Save this one for the Medical Malpractice Hall of Fame… I can totally see one of the medics channeling Jack Sparrow saying, “Where’s the thump-thump?”
Mexican team bobbles heart headed for transplant
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican medics are drawing catcalls after they dropped a heart being rushed to a hospital for a transplant.
Mexico City police say they used a helicopter to deliver the heart in “a rapid, precision maneuver.” But after exiting the chopper, a medic stumbled and the plastic-wrapped heart tumbled out of a cooler onto the street.
Icepicks and Nukes 