We begin with the utterly idiotic, Montana style, via the Missoulan:
Missoula police seek Homeland Security grant, cite Rainbow Family as hazard
The Missoula Police Department got the nod Wednesday to have the mayor sign off on a Homeland Security grant proposal – one that names the Rainbow Family as an “extremist” hazard in western Montana.
The $254,930 grant will purchase a mobile communications vehicle the Missoula police will share with other law enforcement and emergency responders in seven western Montana counties, according to Assistant Police Chief Scott Hoffman. The city’s contribution is $29,200.
In a phone call, Missoula Police Lt. Scott Brodie said the Rainbow Family was named in the grant because of the problems it has caused in the past.
“When they have their gatherings, they historically have created a mess that needs to be cleaned up,” Brodie said.
From the Rainbow Family website, a look at some of the threatening high tech employed by the “extremist” group during their 2013 Montana gathering — perhaps they’re covers for missile silos?:
H/T to Undernews.
From TheLocal.de, good news:
Pegida spinoff rally sees low turnout
A march by an emergent anti-Islamisation group in the German city of Leipzig on Friday failed to drum up much support, with first estimates showing turnout at below 1,000.
Leipzig town hall said in “a prudent estimate” on Twitter that only around 900 protestors had turned out in comparison to the 15,000 who marched on January 21 in Leipzig behind the LEGIDA banner.
LEGIDA is an offshoot of the larger Dresden-based Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of Europe, known as PEGIDA, whose marches have also seen a sudden sharp drop in attendance, following the controversial resignation of its founder earlier this month.
The Asahi Shimbun covers the latest ISIS beheading:
Video: Islamic State group beheads Japanese journalist
An online video released on Jan. 31 purported to show an Islamic State group militant behead Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, ending days of negotiations by diplomats to save the man.
The video, released on militant websites and highlighted by militant sympathizers on social media sites, bore the symbol of the Islamic State group’s al-Furqan media arm.
Though the video could not be immediately independently verified by The Associated Press, it conformed to other beheading videos released by the extremists, who now control a third of both Syria and neighboring Iraq in its self-declared caliphate.
The video, called “A Message to the Government of Japan,” featured a militant who looked and sounded like a militant with a British accent who has taken part in other beheading videos by the Islamic State group. Goto, kneeling in an orange prison jumpsuit, said nothing in the roughly one-minute-long video.
From the Associated Press, umbrage:
Japan ‘indignant’ over purported video of hostage beheading
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed outrage Sunday over a video purportedly from the Islamic State group that shows a militant beheading hostage Kenji Goto.
“I feel indignation over this immoral and heinous act of terrorism,” Abe told reporters after convening an emergency Cabinet meeting. He vowed that Japan will not give in to terrorism and will continue to provide humanitarian aid to countries fighting the Islamic State extremists.
The government said it was rushing to confirm the authenticity of the online video.
Deutsche Welle covers the bellicose:
Japan PM vows justice after IS beheading of Goto
The purported beheading of high-profile Japanese journalist Kenji Goto has prompted a sharp response from the Japanese government. Prime Minister Abe has vowed to help bring the “Islamic State” killers to justice.
“I am extremely angry about these heinous and despicable terrorist acts. We will never forgive terrorists,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters in Tokyo on Sunday.
Shortly before his statement, information was released publicly that an “Islamic State” video purported to show the beheading of captive Kenji Goto. The 47-year-old journalist was kidnapped in October while in Syria. There, he had hoped to win the release of his compatriot, Haruna Yukawa.
“I feel strong indignation at this inhumane and contemptible act of terrorism,” Abe said, adding that Tokyo would “cooperate with the international community to make [the perpetrators] atone for their crimes.”
From JapanToday, the media fog of terror:
Japan self-censors images, words linked to hostage crisis
Images or mentions of knives, ransom or blood — or anything else that can be seen alluding to the hostage crisis involving two Japanese in Syria — have been cut out. Some anime and other entertainment programs are altering, canceling or postponing episodes violating those sensitivities — typical of the kind of self-restraint shown here to avoid controversy.
The restraint by broadcasters and other media has spilled over into politics as opposition lawmakers, mindful of the crisis, toned down their criticism of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his team. When dozens of female lawmakers appeared in their traditional kimonos last week to mark the opening of the annual session, they were attacked on blogs and social networks for looking too festive and insensitive.
Not wanting to be seen as insensitive — a huge faux pas in a society that holds consideration for others in high esteem — Japanese broadcasters quickly screened out any buzzwords and related images, all in the name of “jishuku,” or self-imposed control.
The Guardian covers concession:
Isis finally admits defeat in Kobani after air strikes force its fighters to retreat
‘We had to withdraw and the rats advanced’, say Islamic State fighters in video statement after US-led attacks drive jihadis from Syrian town
Islamic State (Isis) has admitted for the first time that US-led air strikes on Kobani have forced its fighters from the Syrian town.
Two fighters from the Islamist group said in a video that aerial attacks by fighter jets from the US and several Arab countries were the main reason for the withdrawal.
“The warplanes were bombarding us night and day. They bombarded everything, even motorcycles,” one said in Arabic.
Another said the warplanes “destroyed everything, so we had to withdraw and the rats advanced”.
From RT, replaced at the top:
Yemeni Al-Qaeda says France replaced US as ‘main enemy of Islam’
Al-Qaeda in Yemen says France has surpassed the US to become the main enemy of Islam. The group says the US has been “weakening” in recent years, and also claims to be behind the recent terror attacks on Charlie Hebdo journalists in Paris.
The announcement was made by Ibrahim al-Rubaish in an audio message that was published on YouTube. It claimed that with the “weakening” of the United States over the past few years, France has surpassed the US in the “war on Islam,” AFP reported.
US intelligence agencies consider Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) based in Yemen to be the most dangerous branch of the terrorist network – even than Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
From the Guardian, Uncle Sam lethally drones once again:
US drone strike in Yemen kills four suspected al-Qaida operatives
The latest crisis in Yemen has plunged the impoverished country deeper into turmoil and pushed it closer to fracturing along sectarian and tribal lines
Yemeni tribal and security officials said on Saturday a US drone strike had hit a car in the Shabwa province, killing four suspected al-Qaida operatives.
A similar strike targeted the group last Monday, signaling Washington’s determination to keep fighting the militants despite political paralysis in the country brought on by a power grab by Shia rebels.
The officials did not give the nationalities of the men killed, and spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release the information otherwise.
The latest crisis in Yemen has plunged the impoverished country deeper into turmoil and pushed it closer to fracturing along sectarian and tribal lines.
From El País, a lethal Israeli mislead:
Israel warned about attack that killed Spanish peacekeeper
But UN mission was told strikes would hit a different area, military sources say
The Israeli army did warn the UN mission in Lebanon about the strikes that resulted in the death of a Spanish peacekeeper on Wednesday, despite earlier reports to the contrary, Spanish military sources said.
However, the message said the strikes would be launched against a different area from the one where 30 projectiles ultimately fell, according to the same sources.
The communication was received by UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) immediately after a Hezbollah attack against an Israeli convoy that killed two soldiers and injured seven others. The army issued the warning around 20 minutes before retaliating against the Shiite militant group.
From the New York Times, the latest Israeli settlement provocation:
Israel Takes New Step to Expand West Bank Housing
Israel on Friday published bids for the building of 450 new housing units in West Bank settlements, deepening Palestinian anger and eliciting blunt criticism from the United States, which called the move illegitimate, counterproductive and likely to worsen Israel’s isolation.
Israeli critics of the government also assailed the move, describing it as a provocative political gesture meant to appease right-wing voters ahead of elections in March.
The construction bids also came against a background of heightened tensions with the Obama administration over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s impending address to Congress, which was arranged without coordination with the White House.
From the New York Times, police state consolidation north of the border:
Canada Seeks to Strengthen Spy Agency After Attacks
The voting majority held by Mr. Harper and his Conservative Party in the House of Commons all but ensures that the bill will pass without amendment.
Under it, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service would change from an agency that only gathers information to one that can actively intervene in what it regards as terrorist actions in Canada and abroad, and, with court approval, disrupt them. While it would not gain powers of arrest, the spy agency would, among other things, be able to cancel travel arrangements, shut down bank accounts, provide fake versions of dangerous materials to plotters and compel access to buildings in order to plant surveillance devices.
The threshold required for agents to arrest and detain people without charge would be greatly reduced. The police now must convince a judge that a person “will commit” an act of terrorism, and the suspect can be held for three days. The bill would change the standard to “may commit” a terrorism-related crime and it would allow such people to be held without charges for up to a week.
Promoting or advocating terrorism, even in general terms, could bring a five-year prison sentence, and the police would be able to seek court orders to remove such material from Canadian websites.
El País covers Spanish police state consolidation:
PM and Socialist leader seek to finalize anti-terrorist agreement
Opposition reluctantly accepts PP’s introduction of life sentences to save cross-party deal
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez sought on Friday to hammer out the last details of a new cross-party anti-terrorist agreement.
The deal being drafted by the government and the opposition will extend beyond the national arena to connect with European and international cooperation agreements on the issue, said sources in the ruling Popular Party (PP) and opposition Socialists (PSOE).
Those in the Sánchez camp were hoping that each side would make some last-minute concessions in order to obtain a document satisfactory to both parties.
From StarAfrica, the Egyptian police state consolidates:
Egypt’s Sisi establishes unified command to combat terrorism
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi established on Saturday a unified command to combat terrorism east of the Suez Canal, following deadly militant attacks in North Sinai last Thursday.
Sisi promoted Third Field Army Commander Osama Roshdy Askar to lieutenant general, who will be in charge of the command. Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces announced the presidential decree establishing the command, which is effective as of Saturday.
The statement comes following Sisi’s meeting with army council following the deadly attacks in north Sinai which left at least 30 dead and 50 others injured in four separate attacks against security installations in the governorate.
After the jump, Britain launches a military cyberwar social media team, a jihadi online vanishing act, Verizon offers a supercookie out, a Facebook malware assault, a botnet stages a delayed comeback, and a F0xy malware wages a camouflaged attack, Pirate Bay rises from the cyberashes, a dead British superspook link to a pedophile ring, a former Colombian top spook surrenders on wiretap charges, a dead Argentine prosecutor’s DNA found on lethal weapon, CIA linked to a Mossad car bomb murder, a major win for Ukranian separatists, a violent anti-Charlie Hebdo protest in Kabul, China’s first island base chain, Nanking massacre denier to step down as head of Japan’s state broadcaster, and a Japanese publishers raises allegations of U.S. World War II criminal bombing attacks. . .
From the Guardian, Old Blighty takes up cyberarms:
British army creates team of Facebook warriors
Soldiers familiar with social media sought for 77th Brigade, which will be responsible for ‘non-lethal warfare’
The British army is creating a special force of Facebook warriors, skilled in psychological operations and use of social media to engage in unconventional warfare in the information age.
The 77th Brigade, to be based in Hermitage, near Newbury, in Berkshire, will be about 1,500-strong and formed of units drawn from across the army. It will formally come into being in April.
The brigade will be responsible for what is described as non-lethal warfare. Both the Israeli and US army already engage heavily in psychological operations.
Against a background of 24-hour news, smartphones and social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, the force will attempt to control the narrative.
From SecurityWeek, a jihadi online vanishing act:
Jihadists Increasingly Wary of Internet, Experts Say
After having used the Internet profusely for propaganda and recruitment, jihadist organizations have realized that investigators are gleaning crucial information online and are increasingly concealing their web presence, experts say.
Apart from recent orders given to fighters to limit their exposure, erase the footprint of their online activity and avoid revealing too many place names or faces, the Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front groups are increasingly using the “Dark Web” — the hidden part of the Internet protected by powerful encryption softwares.
“Sometimes we get the geographical location of some fighters thanks to Facebook,” Philippe Chadrys, in charge of the fight against terrorism at France’s judicial police, said earlier this week.
Verizon offers a supercookie out, via Network World:
Verizon to allow opt-out from mobile ‘supercookies’
Verizon will soon allow customers to opt out of having an identifier placed on their phones that had alarmed privacy advocates due to its ability to let third parties persistently track customers.
The identifier or customer code drew concerns primarily because it created so-called “supercookies” that could not be deleted by users. Verizon customers have had the ability to opt out of the company’s advertising programs, but not out of having that identifier placed on their devices.
Now, “we have begun working to expand the opt-out to include the identifier referred to as the UIDH [unique identifier header], and expect that to be available soon,” a Verizon spokeswoman said Friday via email. She added that “Verizon never shares customer information with third parties as part of our advertising program.”
From Threatpost, a Facebook malware assault:
Facebook Malware Poses as Flash Update, Infects 110K Users
A Trojan is making its way around the world’s most populous social network, infecting some 110,000 Facebook users in just two days.
The malware spreads itself by posting links to a pornographic video from the account of previously infected users. The postings generally tag no more than 20 friends of the infected. If and when a user opens the link contained in the post, the video begins to play but then stops and asks the viewer to install a fake Flash player containing a Trojan downloader with the actual malware.
An initial investigation posted on the Full Disclosure mailing list by security researcher Mohammad Faghani revealed that the malware can manipulate keystrokes and mouse movement. One indicator of compromise is the presence of Chrome.exe in the Windows processes.
From Network World, a botnet stages a delayed comeback:
Can’t keep this bad boy down: ZeroAccess botnet back in business
A peer-to-peer botnet called ZeroAccess came out of a six-month hibernation this month after having survived two takedown attempts by law enforcement and security researchers.
At its peak in 2013, ZeroAccess, also known as Sirefef, consisted of more than 1.9 million infected computers that were primarily used for click fraud and Bitcoin mining.
That was until security researchers from Symantec found a flaw in the botnet’s resilient peer-to-peer architecture. This architecture allowed the bots to exchange files, instructions and information with each other without the need for central command-and-control servers, which are the Achilles’ heel of most botnets.
By exploiting the flaw, Symantec managed to detach over half a million computers from ZeroAccess in July 2013 and launched an effort to clean them up in cooperation with ISPs and CERTs.
And from SecurityWeek, a F0xy malware wages a camouflaged attack:
New “F0xy” Malware Uses Clever Techniques to Stay Hidden
New Malware Downloads Cryptocurrency Miner to Infected Devices
Researchers at Websense have come across a new piece of malware that leverages legitimate websites and services in an effort to disguise its malicious activities.
The threat has been dubbed “f0xy” not only because it’s cunning like a fox, but also because this particular string has been found in its executables and the registries it creates for persistence.
The earliest samples identified by researchers are dated January 13, 2015, but the malware has been enhanced by its creators since. Initial variants only worked on Windows Vista and later versions of Microsoft’s operating system, but newer variants also work on Windows XP, Websense said.
Pirate Bay rises from the cyberashes, via TheLocal.se:
Pirate Bay back online seven weeks after raid
Sweden’s seeming unquashable file-sharing site The Pirate Bay is back online, seven weeks after police seized servers hosted at a data centre in a nuclear-proof bunker deep in a mountain outside Stockholm.
The site came back online on Saturday with a new ‘Phoenix’ logo, a day ahead of a start date indicated by a countdown timer on a temporary site uploaded after servers were seized.
The site’s return has ended speculation from some — including the site’s former spokesman Peter Sunde — that the December raid might actually spell the end for the site, which managed to get back online just three days after it was taken down by a similar raid in 2006.
A dead British superspook link to a pedophile ring, via the Independent:
Westminster ‘paedophile ring’ investigation: Ex-MI6 spy Sir Peter Hayman named in dossier
A top British diplomat and intelligence operative has been named as the focus of a government file into “unnatural” sexual behaviour.
The document, which names Sir Peter Hayman as the subject of a briefing compiled for then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is now available in the National Archives.
Sir Peter, who died in 1992, was High Commissioner to Canada and was worked for MI6.
The file is titled “Sir Peter Hayman: allegations against former public official of unnatural sexual proclivities; security aspects”.
A former Colombian top spook surrenders on wiretap charges, via teleSUR:
Ex-Colombian Intelligence Chief Surrenders to Authorities
The former intelligence officer is wanted for ordering wiretaps on high level officials opposed to then President Alvaro Uribe.
The former head of Colombia’s intelligence agency, who has been hiding out in Panama for over four years, turned herself in to authorities Saturday morning, according to media reports.
Maria del Pilar Hurtado is being charged with illegal surveillance, from when she served as the chief intelligence officer of the now defunct DAS (Administrative Department of Security) intelligence agency during the presidency of Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010).
She is accused of ordering illegal wiretaps on politicians, journalists and even Supreme Court justices opposed to the former President or who “interrupted the governance of Uribe,” according to lower-ranking former DAS officials. Hurtado has been named one of the masterminds behind the surveillance project, who also delivered the illegally obtained intelligence directly to the president.
From Fox News Latino, a dead Argentine prosecutor’s DNA found on lethal weapon:
Argentine probe finds only prosecutor’s DNA on gun
The only DNA found on the gun that killed Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman belonged to the deceased, the person directing the investigation said Friday.
Nisman was found fatally shot on Jan. 18, hours before he was supposed to brief Argentina’s Congress about his accusations that President Cristina Fernandez and other officials sought to conceal the involvement of Iran in a deadly 1994 terrorist attack targeting a Jewish organization in Buenos Aires.
The prosecutor died of a single shot to the temple, fired at point-blank range from a .22-caliber pistol that was found under his body in the bathroom of his apartment.
CIA linked to a Mossad car bomb murder, via the Washington Post:
CIA and Mossad killed senior Hezbollah figure in car bombing
On Feb. 12, 2008, Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s international operations chief, walked on a quiet nighttime street in Damascus after dinner at a nearby restaurant. Not far away, a team of CIA spotters in the Syrian capital was tracking his movements.
As Mughniyah approached a parked SUV, a bomb planted in a spare tire on the back of the vehicle exploded, sending a burst of shrapnel across a tight radius. He was killed instantly.
The device was triggered remotely from Tel Aviv by agents with Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, who were in communication with the operatives on the ground in Damascus. “The way it was set up, the U.S. could object and call it off, but it could not execute,” said a former U.S. intelligence official.
The United States helped build the bomb, the former official said, and tested it repeatedly at a CIA facility in North Carolina to ensure the potential blast area was contained and would not result in collateral damage.
From the Los Angeles Times, a major win for Ukranian separatists:
Pro-Russia separatists say they’ve trapped thousands of Ukraine troops
Pro-Russia separatists claimed Saturday that they had trapped thousands of Ukrainian government troops in the course of fierce fighting in Ukraine’s troubled east.
“We have practically encircled from 8,000 to 10,000 Kiev junta troops in the area around [the town of] Debaltsevo,” Eduard Basurin, chief political officer of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic armed forces, said in a phone interview. “The only road connecting them with the other troops is day and night under our close artillery fire and they can survive only if they raise a white flag and surrender.”
Ukraine regular troops had refused to surrender, the separatist senior commander said, “so we will have to destroy all of them.”
From the Guardian, the protests continue:
Kabul: anti-Charlie Hebdo protest turns violent
Riot police clash with crowds demonstrating against magazine’s practice of running satirical caricatures depicting prophet Muhammad
A protest in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, turned into a violent confrontation between riot police and demonstrators, police said.
Farid Afzeli, chief of the Kabul police department’s criminal investigations division, said several hundred demonstrators gathered in eastern Kabul on Saturday afternoon to protest the magazine’s ongoing practice of running satirical caricatures depicting the prophet Muhammad.
Afzeli says the protest started peacefully, but a group of armed infiltrators began blocking roads, throwing rocks and shooting at police officers on the scene. Police responded by calling in reinforcements and firing in the air to disperse the crowd, he said.
Want China Times covers China’s first island base chain:
S China Sea islands could be China’s first island chain: report
China’s land reclamation efforts in the disputed South China Sea may eventually become the nation’s first island chain, allowing the nation to contain the US military facilities in Australia according to the Japan Military Review, a defense magazine based in Tokyo.
Saburo Tanaka, a Japanese expert in Chinese military development said that the US bases in Australia have become the primary concern of the People’s Liberation Army. With the land reclamation projects in the disputed region, China is capable of defending its maritime supply line in the north of the Strait of Malacca while preventing the US Pacific Fleet from entering the South China Sea from the Celebes Sea according to the article.
The blueprint drawn by the Ninth Design and Research Institute of the state-run China State Shipbuilding Corporation indicates that the PLA plans to build both naval and air force bases on the six islands and reefs under its control in the South China Sea. China is said to be constructing an airfield on Johnson South Reef which is about 3,200 kilometers away from the northern coast of Australia. From there, the PLA’s H-6 strategic bombers with a combat radius of 1,800 kilometers could potentially launch an attack against Australia.
A denier to step down, via the Japan Times:
Nanking Massacre denier Hyakuta to resign NHK governorship in February
Novelist Naoki Hyakuta, an NHK governor who has drawn flak for a series of inflammatory remarks, including his public denial of the 1937 Rape of Nanking, will resign from the broadcaster’s management committee when his term expires at the end of February, sources said Saturday.
Hyakuta, 58, who has close ties with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has been a constant source of controversy since his appointment as one of NHK’s 12 governors in November 2013.
In February 2014, during a campaign speech for Toshio Tamogami, a right-wing politician running in Tokyo’s gubernatorial race, Hyakuta said the 1937 Rape of Nanking by Japanese troops in China never happened. This drew an outcry from the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, where a official in charge of press operations said the U.S. government’s consensus view was that Hyakuta’s comments were “preposterous.”
And a Japanese publishers raises allegations of U.S. World War II criminal bombing attacks, via the Asahi Shimbun:
New photo book includes vast trove showing atrocities of U.S. bombings of Tokyo
A Tokyo-based private museum has published a photo book that features 1,400 pictures documenting the destruction and atrocities unleashed by U.S. air raids of Tokyo, including a large number of unpublished pictures, to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The 530-page “Tokyo Daikushu Shashinshu” (The Collection of Tokyo Air Raids Photographs), published by the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage in Koto Ward, features pictures taken by cameramen and other officials of the military and police authorities during and after the Tokyo bombings between 1942 and 1945.
“The pictures effectively show many characteristics of the damage by the bombings of Tokyo,” said Masahiko Yamabe, the museum’s chief researcher. “I hope readers will see that the air raids not only damaged military factories but also killed civilians and destroyed people’s homes and cultural, religious and other civilian facilities.”
