What's going on in the World Today 190923

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USA

Russia and China Are Trying to Set the U.N.’s Rules on Cybercrime

At the United Nations General Assembly, the United States must push back against their agenda.

As world leaders gather in New York next week for another session of the United Nations General Assembly, they’ll have a number of pressing global security challenges on their minds. But on one key topic—cybercrime—the United States risks losing to Russia and China if it doesn’t have a clear strategy for pushing back against their attempts to prevail on the issue. By failing to articulate its own vision for cybersecurity, it would let two countries that have sponsored and harbored cybercriminals set the rules of the game.

The playing field has long been set in the competition to create the rules governing how countries deal with cybercrime. On one side, you have a global treaty, known as the Budapest Convention, which was drafted with strong support from the United States and its allies. The convention is the only legally binding international treaty that lays out common standards on cybercrime investigations and aims to boost cooperation among criminal justice systems around the globe in these cases. On the other side, you have Russia and China, two countries that have long been accused of sponsoring malicious cyberactivity themselves. These countries have refused to join the Budapest Convention and have instead called for a new global cybercrime treaty at the U.N.—one that they could presumably influence the drafting of...

RQ-4 Selected To Support Hypersonic Weapon Tests

A group of high-altitude RQ-4 unmanned aircraft systems will be drafted into service to support an upcoming series of hypersonic missile flight tests, the commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) says in an interview.
AFRICA


With Recent Terror Attacks, IS Expands Presence in Mozambique

Last week, militants affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) terror group stormed into a Christian village in northern Mozambique, burning houses and forcing residents to flee their homes, local reports said. A few days before that, militants entered another village in the same province, torching houses throughout the region. IS has claimed responsibility for both attacks via its social media outlets. The recent attacks in the southeast African country signals a growing presence of IS militants who have carried out similar attacks against the military and local residents in the Muslim-majority northern part of Mozambique...

ASIA

Exclusive: Australia concluded China was behind hack on parliament, political parties – sources   

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian intelligence determined China was responsible for a cyber-attack on its national parliament and three largest political parties before the general election in May, five people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Australia’s cyber intelligence agency - the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) - concluded in March that China’s Ministry of State Security was responsible for the attack, the five people with direct knowledge of the findings of the investigation told Reuters.

The five sources declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue. Reuters has not reviewed the classified report.

The report, which also included input from the Department of Foreign Affairs, recommended keeping the findings secret in order to avoid disrupting trade relations with Beijing, two of the people said. The Australian government has not disclosed who it believes was behind the attack or any details of the report...

Turkey to receive second batch of S-400 missile system this week

Ankara has gone ahead with its purchase of the Russian defence system despite threats of US sanctions…. Ankara received its first supply of S-400 missiles in July, despite a warning by the United States about possible sanctions. The acquisition of the highly-advanced air defence system has led to a standoff between Turkey and its NATO allies, especially the US. Deliveries of the system are set to continue until April 2020. One killed, two wounded in Israeli settlement bomb attack

EUROPE

Terrorism: Two arrested in bomb investigation released [UK]

Two men arrested by detectives investigating the attempted murder of police officers have been released unconditionally. A 39-year-old and 35-year-old had been arrested under the Terrorism Act following searches in the Lurgan and Craigavon areas. It is part of the investigation into the attempted murder of officers in County Armagh and County Fermanagh...

LATIN/SOUTH AMERICA

NOTHING SIGNIFICANT TO REPORT

AFGHANISTAN

Reweighing the Prospects for Peace in Afghanistan

The Big Picture

The United States is looking to further draw down its involvement in Afghanistan as Washington focuses on its great power competitions. But fears that a withdrawal will leave a security vacuum Islamic State and al Qaeda extremists can fill have compelled the White House to negotiate an agreement with the Taliban over the past year.

On Sept. 7, U.S. President Donald Trump called off a nearly yearlong U.S. effort to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan — citing a recent attack that killed a U.S. soldier (among other victims) as proof of the insurgency's insincerity in peace efforts. The announcement has since halted U.S. efforts to continue its drawdown from its nearly 18-yearlong involvement in Afghanistan. The White House, however, has not deviated from its goal of forging a political settlement to end the conflict, which suggests talks will resume at some point. But even if the United States extracts a partial cease-fire and counterterrorism guarantees from the Taliban in exchange for a troop withdrawal under a peace deal, the wider Afghan conflict will continue apace until the Taliban and Kabul agree to a nationwide cease-fire...
CHINA

Israel Shouldn’t Worry About Ilhan Omar. It Should Worry About Xi Jinping.

China risks becoming a point of chronic contention between the United States and Israel.

BY JOHN HANNAH | SEPTEMBER 19, 2019, 11:58 AM

Far be it from me to dismiss the hullaballoo surrounding Israel’s decision last month to bar two U.S. congresswomen from entering the country. After nearly 35 years of working on national-security issues in Washington, I’ve come to put a high premium on the strong bipartisan support that undergirds the U.S.-Israel alliance. Leaders in both countries bear a heavy responsibility to preserve and protect it. But once emotions have cooled, I find it hard to imagine that Israel’s sovereign decision to keep out two first-term legislators with such deep-seated animus toward the Jewish state really poses a serious threat to the Democratic Party’s long and venerable pro-Israel tradition.

Which is why, when I think about the future of relations between the United States and Israel, my mind these days turns far more to China than to Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. How the United States and Israel address China’s rising power could be a source of either great peril or great promise for the broader relationship. Get it wrong, and China risks becoming a point of chronic contention. Get it right, and the challenge of dealing with China could boost U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation, which is already deep and expansive, to a new level.

Immediate tensions over China arise from the dramatic shift in U.S.-China policy that the Trump administration signaled when it issued its first National Security Strategy in December 2017. For decades before Donald Trump became U.S. president, Washington has operated under the view that offering Beijing a steady stream of inducements and accommodations could make it a responsible stakeholder in the existing rules-based international system. But years of predatory economic policies, escalating militarism in the South and East China Seas, and deepening authoritarianism within China have put the lie to that dream. It turns out that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has its own dream—which doesn’t include being a junior partner in a U.S.-led order based on democracy and free markets. China’s ambition is not to be a subsidiary of Pax Americana, but to displace it in favor of a world where Beijing increasingly calls the shots, and where dictatorship and state-controlled economies are the norm...

Concerns Growing that China's Influence Operations Getting Bolder

Revelations that China has been using social media accounts to influence public opinion on continuing protests in Hong Kong are reinforcing warnings from U.S. intelligence that the battle for information dominance has been joined. Until now, much of the focus on been on Russia for its use of social media to meddle in a number of Western elections, including the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and, more recently, the 2018 congressional elections. But top U.S. intelligence officials have repeatedly warned Russia is not alone, and that other U.S adversaries would be using lessons from Moscow's successes for their own purposes. No adversary, they
said, posed a bigger threat than China.

IRAN

Iran test-fired new missile, says Revolutionary Guards commander

Iran has test-fired a new missile, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said…. "Our country is always the arena for testing a variety of defence and strategic systems and these are non-stop movements towards the growth of our deterrent power," Major General Hossein Salami said on Saturday. "And yesterday was one of the successful days for this nation," he said, without providing more information about the missile...

Iran, Russia: Countries Agree on Non-SWIFT Alternatives for Bilateral Payment Transactions

What Happened: Iran and Russia will drop the financial messaging service SWIFT for bilateral payment transfers and use their domestic systems to protect themselves from third-party sanctions, the Financial Tribune reported Sept. 17.

Why It Matters: Moscow's and Tehran's decision to replace the SWIFT system is a notable sign of growing Iranian-Russian economic ties amid increased U.S. sanctions pressure against both countries. The Russian government has already stepped up its efforts to insulate its economy from U.S. exposure, including developing an alternative to SWIFT.

Background: The Belgium-based SWIFT announced in November 2018 that it would be cutting ties with Iranian banks following the U.S. decision to resume sanctions against Tehran

IRAQ

NOTHING SIGNIFICANT TO REPORT

ISRAEL

Israel Says It Struck Iranian ‘Killer Drones’ in Syria

Israeli warplanes struck targets in Syria where Iran was preparing to attack Israel using explosive-laden “killer drones,” Israel’s military said, and top commanders were on alert early Sunday to see how Iran might respond. In what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “major operational effort,” Israeli fighters hit the Syrian town of Aqraba, between downtown Damascus and the city’s airport, around 11 p.m. Saturday.
UN peacekeeping patrol filmed coming under attack by Hezb

KOREAN PENINSULA

North Korean Malicious Cyber Activity

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have identified two malware variants—referred to as ELECTRICFISH and BADCALL—used by the North Korean government. The U.S. Government refers to malicious cyber activity by the North Korean government as HIDDEN COBRA. CISA encourages users and administrators to review the HIDDEN COBRA - North Korean Malicious Cyber Activity page, which contains links to Malware Analysis Reports MAR-10135536-21 and MAR10135536-10, for more information.


North Korean state hackers target retired diplomats and military officials

In what appears to be the first attack of its kind, a North Korean state-sponsored hacking group has been targeting retired South Korean diplomats, government, and military officials. Targets of this recent campaign include former ambassadors, military generals, and retired members of South Korea's Foreign Ministry and Unification Ministry. The attacks occurred between mid-July and mid-August, and targeted officials' Gmail and Naver email accounts… At the technical level, the attacks were basic spear-phishing attempts. North Korean hackers sent emails which redirected victims to fake login pages, where attackers would log victims' account credentials...


South Korea Launches Military Exercise for Islets Also Claimed by Japan

South Korea on Sunday kicked off its biannual military exercises aimed at demonstrating control over a set of islets that are the source of a territorial dispute with Japan, a move that was likely to heighten tensions between Washington’s two key Asian allies. Relations between Seoul and Tokyo are already in their worst state in years as the two nations have engaged in a tit-for-tat escalation of tensions over historical and trade disputes.

Photos indicate North Korea may be building submarine capable of launching nuclear missiles

Satellite photos indicate North Korea is building a ballistic missile submarine and may be making preparations to test a submarine-launched missile, according to an analysis of the commercial images by experts at a Washington-based think tank. The photos of Sinpo South Shipyard taken Monday appear to confirm reports by North Korean state media of a “newly built submarine” inspected by the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, in July….
North Korea's new warheads could penetrate missile shield, says Japan

North Korea appears to be developing warheads to penetrate a missile shield defending


Japan, the country’s defence minister has said. Minister Takeshi Iwaya said on Tuesday Japan believed the rockets were a new short-range ballistic missile, pointing to their irregular trajectories, which theoretically could outsmart existing defence systems. Recent short-range missile tests by Pyongyang have stoked alarm in neighbouring Japan even as US president Donald Trump has dismissed the launches as unimportant.

RUSSIA

Putin vows to respond after US missile test

President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian military on Friday to work out a quid pro quo response after the test of a new U.S. missile banned under a now-defunct arms treaty. In Sunday’s test, a modified ground-launched version of a U.S. Navy Tomahawk cruise missile accurately struck its target more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) away. The test came after Moscow and Washington withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF)
Treaty.

Two Suspected IS Supporters Arrested In Russia's Tatarstan

A court in Russia's Republic of Tatarstan has arrested two men suspected of supporting the extremist group Islamic State and planning a terrorist attack. …On August 1 sent Ruslan Shamsutdinov and Ilshat Zainabutdinov to pretrial detention for two months. They were detained a day earlier and charged with propagating terrorism and recruiting for a terrorist group

MIDDLE EAST GENERAL

Saudi Oil Infrastructure Offers a Target-Rich Environment for Iran

Highlights

- Iran has recently focused on building up its missile capabilities, putting Saudi Arabia's critical infrastructure within its reach.

- Saudi air defenses have significant vulnerabilities to missile and air attacks by Iran, whether launched directly from Iran or via Iraq or Yemen.

- The Saudi oil and gas sector has numerous chokepoints Iran can target, and Iran could decide to expand its target set beyond the petroleum sector.

For years Iran has threatened that if it were no longer able to export oil because of U.S. sanctions, then no one else would be able to either. The Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi Arabian Oil Co.'s Abqaiq and Khurais oil processing complexes and two earlier attacks on the Saudi oil sector gave life to longstanding fears of Iranian attacks on Saudi critical infrastructure. Iran has clearly made the strategic decision to escalate its attacks against oil industry targets in the region in response to U.S. sanctions pressure and Washington's departure from the Iranian nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action...

The Big Picture

This Is the Moment That Decides the Future of the Middle East

If the United States is done fighting for Saudi Arabia’s oil, it's done fighting for the entire region.

BY STEVEN A. COOK

Since the end of World War II, three core interests have shaped U.S. Middle East policy: ensuring the free flow of energy resources from the region, helping to maintain Israeli security, and making sure no state or group of states can challenge American power in a way that would put the other two interests at risk. In other words, aside from the strategic, historical, moral, and political reasons for the “special” U.S.-Israel relationship, oil is the reason why the United States is in the Middle East at all.

That’s why this moment—the aftermath of an attack on Saudi Arabia’s most significant crude-oil processing facilities—is so important. How the Trump administration responds will indicate whether U.S. elites still consider energy resources a core national interest and whether the United States truly is on its way out of the Middle East entirely, as so many in the region suspect.

When the story broke on Saturday morning that Saudi Arabia’s processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais were attacked and that the likely culprits were Houthis, the debate among foreign-policy experts quickly became about Saudi Arabia’s culpability for suffering in Yemen, how much influence Iran has with the Houthis, and whom the Saudis were actually fighting. These questions only intensified after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo specifically accused Iran of the attacks. Speculation was that Pompeo—an Iran hawk—was being too cute by half, directly blaming the Iranians though Tehran was likely only indirectly responsible. This is not an unreasonable position, given Iran’s long history of avoiding direct confrontation in favor of supplying proxies with money, technology, and weapons to do their dirty work around the region. Others agreed with Pompeo that the Iranian role was clear, a position that grew stronger as reports surfaced that cruise missiles were used in the attacks. It was a robust, if not always edifying discussion. It also does not really matter...

How an Aerial Barrage Cut Saudi Oil Production in Half

Tensions in the region spike as U.S. blames Iran.

BY KEITH JOHNSON | SEPTEMBER 15, 2019, 10:00 AM

Over the weekend, Saudi oil facilities were attacked by drones allegedly launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen, knocking off nearly half of Saudi oil production, spooking the Saudi stock market, and raising fears of a spike in both the price of oil and regional tensions. It’s one of the biggest attacks on global energy infrastructure in decades, but it’s still not clear if the damage will be short-lived and easily contained, or if it will weigh on the global economy for weeks to come and lead to further escalation in regional conflict.

What officially happened?

Houthi rebels in Yemen took credit for the strikes Saturday with multiple drones that damaged Saudi oil fields and Abqaiq, a key oil-processing facility in the eastern part of the country. The attack on the very heart of the global oil industry—Abqaiq processes about 7 million barrels of oil a day, or roughly 7 percent of the world’s crude output—made real what had been long considered by Saudi and Western security planners to be a nightmare scenario.

Saudi officials shut down more than 5 million barrels a day of oil-output capability, about half the kingdom’s daily production, while they put out the fires and assessed the damage; a formal report on the extent of the damage and the duration of any disruption is expected early next week, but Saudi oil officials told Reuters the outages could take weeks to repair.

The attacks follow other Houthi strikes on Saudi oil-pumping stations in May and a natural gas facility last month, part of the wider, yearslong conflict between Riyadh and rebellious forces in neighboring Yemen...

CYBER ISSUES

The Great Anti-China Tech Alliance
The United States and Europe will regret letting Beijing win the race to govern digital technology.

BY ANDREW GROTTO, MARTIN SCHALLBRUCH | SEPTEMBER 16, 2019, 9:17 AM

In these early days of the regulatory renaissance for digital technologies, China, Europe, and the United States are competing over whose image will be most reflected in market-defining rules and norms. Despite new lows in the trans-Atlantic relationship in the era of Trump, Europe and the United States still have far more in common with each other about how technology should be developed, deployed, and regulated than they do with China. With China pulling into the pole position in this race, it is time for the United States and Europe to forge a digital governance alliance.

The regulatory renaissance has many dimensions: data protection, cybersecurity, antitrust, and tax, to name a few. European initiatives in these domains—such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and antitrust investigations of major technology platforms—are relatively notorious and reasonably well understood. Their effects also reverberate well beyond Europe: GDPR, for example, is rapidly becoming a model law for other governments to follow for their own privacy regulatory measures. Europe has similar ambitions with respect to artificial intelligence governance...

US officials fear ransomware attack against 2020 election

The U.S. government plans to launch a program in roughly one month that narrowly focuses on protecting voter registration databases and systems ahead of the 2020 presidential election. These systems, which are widely used to validate the eligibility of voters before they cast ballots, were compromised in 2016 by Russian hackers seeking to collect information. Intelligence officials are concerned that foreign hackers in 2020 not only will target the databases but attempt to manipulate, disrupt or destroy the data, according to current and former U.S. officials. “We assess these systems as high risk,” said a senior U.S. official, because they are one of the few pieces of election technology regularly connected to the Internet...

It was sensitive data from a U.S. anti-terror program – and terrorists could have gotten to it for years…

The Department of Homeland Security stored sensitive data from the nation’s bioterrorism defense program on an insecure website where it was vulnerable to attacks by hackers for over a decade…. The data included the locations of at least some BioWatch air samplers, which are installed at subway stations and other public locations in more than 30 U.S. cities and are designed to detect anthrax or other airborne biological weapons, Homeland Security officials confirmed. It also included the results of tests for possible pathogens, a list of biological agents that could be detected and response plans that would be put in place in the event of an attack. The information — housed on a dot-org website run by a private contractor — has been moved behind a secure federal government firewall, and the website was shut down in May. But Homeland Security officials acknowledge they do not know whether hackers ever gained access to the data.

From Soviet-Style C2 Approach To DARPA’s Mosaic
Sep 13, 2019 Graham Warwick and Steve Trimble | Aviation Week & Space Technology

The U.S.’ world-leading weapon systems are under pressure. They take decades and billions of dollars to develop, and more years and billions to upgrade to stay ahead of the threat. And potential adversaries are modernizing faster than ever.

The problem, argues DARPA, is that the U.S. has invested in dominant, monolithic platforms that are difficult to develop and upgrade. Efforts to extend the capabilities of these platforms by connecting them, call it network-centric warfare or system of systems, have created monolithic architectures that are even harder to develop and upgrade. This makes it challenging for the U.S. to respond quickly to new threats.

The Pentagon’s advanced research agency is championing a different approach: mosaic warfare. “Simply put, we are monolith-busters,” says Tim Grayson, director of its Strategic Technology Office. “System of systems and net-centricity were targeted at busting monolithic platforms. But everyone just aggregated those functions, tied them together in a vertically integrated platform-centric program. Most have not gone well. We’ve just replaced monolithic platforms with monolithic architectures...”

INTEL GENERAL

China’s Spies Are on the Offensive. Can the US Fend Them Off?

Recent events suggest Beijing has increased both the scope and the sophistication of its efforts to steal American secrets. In early 2017, Kevin Mallory was struggling financially. After years of drawing a government salary as a member of the military and as a CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency officer, he was behind on his mortgage and $230,000 in debt. Though he had, like many veteran intelligence officials, ventured into the private sector, where the pay can be considerably better, things still weren’t going well; his consulting business was floundering. Then, prosecutors said, he received a message on LinkedIn, where he had more than 500
connections. It had come from a Chinese recruiter with whom Mallory had five mutual connections. The recruiter, according to the message, worked for a think tank in China, where Mallory, who spoke fluent Mandarin, had been based for part of his career. The think tank, the recruiter said, was interested in Mallory’s foreign-policy expertise. The LinkedIn message led to a phone call with a man who called himself Michael Yang. According to the FBI, the initial conversations that would lead Mallory down a path of betrayal were conducted in the bland language of professional courtesy…. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in May; his lawyers plan to appeal the conviction. If Mallory’s story was unique, he’d just be a tragic example of a former intelligence officer gone astray. But in the past year, two other former U.S. intelligence officers pleaded guilty to espionage-related charges involving China. They are an alarming sign for the U.S. intelligence community, which sees China in the same tier as Russia as America’s top espionage threat...


Top Canadian police official charged with espionage offenses had access to international intelligence

A senior Canadian police intelligence official charged with espionage-related offenses had access secret information from both domestic and international allies it was confirmed Monday. Cameron Ortis is accused of multiple offenses under the Security of Information Act, as well as two sections of the country's Criminal Code, according to a statement from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). They include the "unauthorized communication of special operational information" and possession of a device "for surreptitiously communicating, obtaining or retaining information," the RCMP said

Exclusive: Russia carried out a 'stunning' breach of FBI communications system, escalating the spy game on U.S. soil

Zach Dorfman, Jenna McLaughlin and Sean D. NaylorReporters,Yahoo News•September 16, 2019

On Dec. 29, 2016, the Obama administration announced that it was giving nearly three dozen Russian diplomats just 72 hours to leave the United States and was seizing two rural East Coast estates owned by the Russian government. As the Russians burned papers and scrambled to pack their bags, the Kremlin protested the treatment of its diplomats, and denied that those compounds — sometimes known as the “dachas” — were anything more than vacation spots for their personnel.

The Obama administration’s public rationale for the expulsions and closures — the harshest U.S. diplomatic reprisals taken against Russia in several decades — was to retaliate for Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. But there was another critical, and secret, reason why those locations and diplomats were targeted.

Both compounds, and at least some of the expelled diplomats, played key roles in a brazen Russian counterintelligence operation that stretched from the Bay Area to the heart of the nation’s capital, according to former U.S. officials. The operation, which targeted FBI communications, hampered the bureau’s ability to track Russian spies on U.S. soil at a time of increasing tension with Moscow, forced the FBI and CIA to cease contact with some of their Russian assets, and prompted tighter security procedures at key U.S. national security facilities in the Washington area and elsewhere, according to former U.S. officials. It even raised concerns among some U.S. officials about a Russian mole within the U.S. intelligence community...

Senior Canadian police intelligence officer arrested on suspicion of espionage

A senior official of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police intelligence unit has been arrested and charged with multiple charges, including espionage with foreign powers.

The RCMP member, identified as Cameron Ortis, was arrested Thursday in Ottawa, Canada, following an extensive national security investigation, Global News reported...

...Sources told Global News that Ortis is believed to have stolen “large quantities of information, which could compromise an untold number of investigations....”

...He faces up 33 years in prison if convicted.

In Countering a Creative Security Threat, Anticipation Is Key
By Scott Stewart VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor

Highlights

- Because criminals, militants, spies and the like are ever resourceful, security personnel must overcome some of their traditional inflexibility in addressing threats to their companies.

- Focusing on trends in criminal tradecraft will help departments identify and prepare for the threats they are likely to face.

- Security departments can nip a potential attack in the bud if they can deny resourceful adversaries the ability to conduct surveillance at will.

The old adage "necessity is the mother of invention" is never truer than when it comes to crime. I spent most of last week in Chicago attending the annual ASIS International Global Security Exchange, chatting to colleagues old and new about the particular challenges they face. In doing so, something struck me: Whether it's criminals, militants, corporate spies or activist groups, every threat is adaptive and creative. And then the flip side of this realization also occurred to me: By nature, security people and the programs they create tend to be rigid and inflexible. After all, many security leaders come out of the military or law enforcement (or both, like me). And even those from different backgrounds tend to pick up many of the cultural traits of such institutions by working with and for people who have...

TERRORISM

NYPD Investigates Potential Terror Threat Against Police Precinct

Police are asking for help in finding a man they want question about a terror threat in the Bronx. Investigators say the man walked into a mosque at 702 Rhinelander Avenue on Sunday and asked the imam for help in carrying out a terror attack on a police precinct. The man walked out after being ordered to leave the mosque...

Police raids find huge arms cache linked to Islamic terror group [UK]

Four men arrested in Coventry by counter-terrorism officers after rifle, silencer and ammunition found at two addresses…. A significant arms cache, including a sniper rifle, a silencer and tracer rounds linked to the banned terrorist group al-Muhajiroun have been found in Coventry, the Observer can reveal.

MISC

Northrop denies Boeing’s request to join ICBM replacement team: Northrop Grumman has rebuffed a request by Boeing to team up to develop America’s next intercontinental ballistic missile.

WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman has rebuffed a request by Boeing to team up to develop America’s next intercontinental ballistic missile, according to the latter company.

The attempt comes months after Boeing dropped out of the running to compete directly with Northrop on the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, which is expected to cost about $85 billion over the life of the program...

...In August 2017, Boeing and Northrop bested out Lockheed Martin to be the final two competitors on the program. But in July 2019, Boeing made the decision to drop out of the program, citing in part its belief that Northrop’s acquisition of solid-fueled rocket motor manufacturer Orbital ATK, now known as Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, gave the competitor an unfair advantage...