This Week in the Blackwater Tactical Weekly…

Weekly Security Developments

• Defense Secretary Gates: Surge Force of 30,000 Going to Afghanistan Will Grow to 33,000
• U.S. Spec Ops Adviser: Widen the Drone War in Pakistan
• Chechen Rebels Claim Responsibility For Bombing Nevsky Express Train
• Suicide Bombing in Somalia Kills 22, Including 3 Ministers

U.S. Defense News

• U.S. Marine Corps Chooses H&K To Make SAW Replacement<
• SCAR-H Seen in Afghanistan
• Laser Avenger Destroys Improvised Explosive Devices in Test
• Bomb-Resistant Trucks to be Equipped With RPG-Blasters
• Pilum High: The Javelin Anti-Armor Missile

International Military News

• F-22 Raptors to Japan?
• Iran Confirms Russia is Delivering S-300 Anti-Aircraft System in 2 Months
• Latin American Defense Plans Move Forward Despite Recession
• IAF Grounds All Sukhoi Fighter Planes After Crash

Afghanistan–Pakistan Developments

• First Target: Poppy Growing Helmand and Taliban-Controlled Kandahar
• High-Tech MRAP All Terrain Vehicle Key to Afghanistan Surge
• US Army Wants 120mm GPS-Guided Mortars to Fight Afghan Insurgents
• Kandahar: Taliban’s Birthplace, Afghanistan’s Crucible

Homeland Security–First Responder

• A Cop-Killer Crisis Ends, But Tacoma's Anxiety Lingers
• Homeland Security Chief Warns of Threat From Al-Qaeda Sympathizers in U.S.
• How Vulnerable is the Smart Grid?

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Defense Secretary Gates: Surge Force of 30,000 Going to Afghanistan Will Grow to 33,000

New York Daily News

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress on Thursday that the surge force of 30,000 going to Afghanistan will grow to at least 33,000 when support troops are included.  Gates said President Obama had given him the "flexibility" to boost the surge force, in the same sense that Obama has made the "target date" of July 2011 to start withdrawing the surge forces flexible.

Full Story

U.S. Marine Corps Chooses H&K To Make SAW Replacement

Defense News

The U.S. Marine Corps has selected the infantry automatic rifle made by Heckler & Koch as the weapon that will replace the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon in infantry fire teams, a senior service official told Marine Corps Times. The H&K IAR "was truly the best in the class on multiple levels and will finally allow the billet of automatic rifleman to be performed as intended without the disruption of the squad integrity that the M249 created," Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jeffrey Eby, the Corps' senior gunner, said in an e-mail.

SCAR-H Seen in Afghanistan

The Firearm Blog

A photo, which is purported to be real, shows a Ranger using the 7.62x51mm FN SCAR-H ( MK 17 Mod 0 ). The semi-automatic civilian model is called the FN SCAR 17S and will be on sale early next year.

Laser Avenger Destroys Improvised Explosive Devices in Test

Defense Talk

The Boeing Company and the U.S. Army successfully completed a test in September in which a laser system mounted on an Avenger combat vehicle destroyed 50 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) similar to those used by adversaries in war zones. During the laser firings Sept. 22-24 at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Laser Avenger neutralized multiple types of IEDs, including large-caliber artillery munitions and smaller bomblets and mortar rounds.

Bomb-Resistant Trucks to be Equipped With RPG-Blasters

Homeland Security Newswire

There many technologies and ideas on how to protect military vehicles in the theater from RPGs and other munitions used by insurgents; one of the latest technologies is a protection system which blasts incoming rockets before they can hit the vehicle; if the system works, it could go all long way toward neutralizing one of the deadliest threats American troops face overseas.

Pilum High: The Javelin Anti-Armor Missile

Defense Industry Daily

After a series of disastrous experiences in Vietnam trying to use 66mm M72 LAW rockets against old Soviet tanks, the US military developed a renewed seriousness about giving its soldiers shoulder-fired weapons that packed enough punch to face down enemy armor.

F-22 Raptors to Japan?

Defense Industry Daily

Back in February 2006, InsideDefense.com’s Inside The Air Force (ITAF) reported that momentum was building within the Air Force to sell the ultra-advanced F-22A Raptor abroad to trusted U.S. allies, as a way of increasing numbers and production. The USAF originally initially intended to purchase 700-800 F-22 fighters, but that was cut to 442, then 381, and recently cut again to just over 180.

Iran Confirms Russia is Delivering S-300 Anti-Aircraft System in 2 Months

Tehran Times

Iran completed the first day of the third stage of an air-defense exercise, which saw the test firing of modern missile systems, the ISNA news agency said. Iran launched on Sunday a five-day drill, Sky of Velayat 2, designed to strengthen its aerial defense against potential attacks on its nuclear facilities.

Latin American Defense Plans Move Forward Despite Recession

Defense Talk

Although Latin American country budgets have been cut, defense spending for the most part has not. Despite the global recession, Latin American defense spending between 2010 and 2014 is expected to total some $267.8 billion, with Brazil taking the lead with a projected defense budget of $121 billion during the period, according to Forecast International's “The Military Market for Latin America.”

IAF Grounds All Sukhoi Fighter Planes After Crash

Defense Talk

Two days after a Sukhoi fighter jet crashed, the second this year, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has grounded its entire fleet of 100 SU-30 aircraft. "Following the crash at Jaisalmer in Rajasthan on Monday, the IAF has stopped flying all its Sukhoi planes and is conducting precautionary checks on each of the aircraft," an IAF official said in New Delhi.

First Target: Poppy Growing Helmand and Taliban-Controlled Kandahar

Los Angeles Times

New forces will be concentrated most heavily in the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, said officials familiar with the planning. Those provinces are part of Afghanistan's Pashtun heartland, where the roots of the Taliban movement are deepest. Plans call for a near doubling of the Marine contingent in Helmand, which is to grow to about 20,000. That in turn will pave the way for a U.S.-led push to capture the town of Marja, which has remained out of the grasp of Marines who arrived in Helmand five months ago.

High-Tech MRAP All Terrain Vehicle Key to Afghanistan Surge

Wired Defense Blog - Danger Room

The new troops headed to Afghanistan are important, sure. But unless those troops can get around the country without getting blown up, this latest surge is going nowhere fast. Which is why the Pentagon is in the middle of a crash program to build and ship to Afghanistan a new generation of bomb-resistant off-road vehicle, equipped with everything from composite armor to “electronic keels.” If all goes to plan, they should have around 1,000 of the high-tech rides in the country by the end of the year.

US Army Wants 120mm GPS-Guided Mortars to Fight Afghan Insurgents

Defense Industry Daily

The US Army is pushing to get precision mortars developed and deployed to the field in Afghanistan as soon as possible. The precision mortars are needed to target insurgents who are dug in along mountain ridgelines and other high positions.

Kandahar: Taliban’s Birthplace, Afghanistan’s Crucible

Stars and Stripes

Guest columnist Ahmed Rashid reports on how the real problems facing Pakistan are being sidelined by a surge of conspiracy theories.

Full Story

A Cop-Killer Crisis Ends, But Tacoma's Anxiety Lingers

TIME

The news that Maurice Clemmons' rampage had come to an end brought an immense sense of relief to the citizens of the Seattle-Tacoma area. The nearly 48-hour manhunt for him had gripped Washington State since early Sunday morning, Nov. 29, when Clemmons reportedly walked into the Forza Coffee Co., a shop in a strip mall in the Tacoma suburb of Parkland, reached into his jacket, pulled out a gun and opened fire on four officers from the town of Lakewood who were working on their laptops.

Homeland Security Chief Warns of Threat From Al-Qaeda Sympathizers in U.S.

Washington Post

Al-Qaeda followers are inside the United States and would like to attack targets here and in other countries, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. Addressing the America-Israel Friendship League in New York, Napolitano said a string of recent domestic arrests should "remove any remaining comfort that some might have had from the notion that if we fight the terrorists abroad, we won't have to fight them here," rebutting an argument advanced on several occasions by President George W. Bush.

Full Story

How Vulnerable is the Smart Grid?

Homeland Security Newswire

The smart grid is a theoretically closed network, but one with an access point at every home, business, and other electrical power user where a smart-grid device is installed; those devices, which essentially put the smarts into the grid, are computers with access to the network; in the same way attackers have found vulnerabilities in every other computer and software system, they will find vulnerabilities in smart-grid devices.

Full Story

Russia: Bombing of Nevsky Express is ‘Act of Terrorism’

Highlights

1. Chechen rebels responsible for attack on Nevsky Express
2. Bombing may suggest new modus operandi of North Caucasus-based militants
3. Attack likely to result in increased Russian intervention in Chechnya

On November 27, 2009 the Nevsky Express between Moscow and St. Petersburg derailed when an improvised explosive device detonated in the village of Uglovaka, killing at least 26 and injuring 100. The blast derailed at least three carriages from the tracks and left a five-foot-deep crater.

As the Nevsky Express is one of Russia’s fastest and most luxurious trains, popular among business executives and government officials, the bombing raises new questions over security and the prospects that terrorism has returned to the country’s major cities. While few details are known about the attack, the Chechen rebels have claimed responsibility for the attack and Russian investigators have focused primarily on a Chechen link.

Given the claim of responsibility and that Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov released a video in April 2009 calling for attacks against civilian locations in Russia, we believe there is a high likelihood the organization conducted the attack. While the Chechen rebels operational capabilities are primarily confined to the North Caucasus, the group maintains extensive links with supporters based in Moscow and St. Petersburg, allowing the group to expand its operational reach.

“A Stocky, Red-Haired Man”

While the Russian government has yet to officially name any suspects or motive for the attack, it did release a computerized sketch of a possible suspect. Police have issued an all-points bulletin for a middle-aged, stocky, red-haired man reportedly seen in the vicinity after the blast. The government has not named who this individual is, but there is a speculation that he is former Russian soldier-turned-Islamic-extremist, Pavel Kosolapov.

Kosolapov is believed to have been a close associate of Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev, who was the mastermind of several spectacular terrorist attacks on Russian soil and killed by Russian security forces in 2006. Kosolapov was blamed for a similar bombing on the Nevsky Express in 2007, where a similar bomb exploded on the same track but failed to derail the train. The government appears primarily focused on Kosolapov and his immediate links, raising the likelihood that the Chechen rebels conducted the attack.

New Modus Operandi

We note previous terrorist attacks perpetuated by Chechen rebels on Russian soil have often been large-scale, spectacular operations, including the 2002 siege at a Moscow theater and the 2004 Beslan school assault. Russian security forces managed to crush the terrorist operations, but at a large cost of civilian lives. We believe Russian security forces remain fixated on preventing large, spectacular attacks similar to Moscow and Beslan, instead of preparing for smaller-scale attacks at targets of opportunity, such as the most recent bombing of the Nevsky Express.

We believe the latest tactics used in the Nevsky Express bombing may suggest a new modus operandi is taking place, with small terrorist cells of possibly three to five people planning and executing acts of sabotage. To further underscore the notion, in southern Dagestan a small bomb targeted an international train traveling from Tyumen, in Siberia, to Baku in Azerbaijan on November 30th. While Chechen rebels and other linked militant groups have never ceased operations in the North Caucasus, the two attacks and the tactics used may indicate that the rebels are preparing to resume more ambitious operations against Russia, both in the North Caucasus and in major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Given that the Interior Ministry is the primary agency dealing with anti-terrorism and largely functions on a military mindset, the ability to counter smaller-scale attacks perpetuated by small teams of militants is limited.

Wave of Terror

The November 27, 2009 attack is indicative that neither the Russian government nor local Chechen strongman Ramzon Kadyrov have been successful in defeating militants in the North Caucasus. The opposite has occurred over the last several months, where Chechen rebels and other linked groups have become increasingly active in Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia.

While it is too early to tell if the attack on the Nevsky Express and on the international train in southern Dagestan represents a new modus operandi by North Caucasus-based militants or that a new wave of terrorism is about to plague Russia, it does show the militants remain active, operationally capable, and intent on targeting high-level locations. A majority of the violence is confined to the North Caucasus region, as the militants remain most capable and influential there, but the Nevksy Express attack suggests the rebels maintain links with individuals throughout Russia. Supporters and militants alike, such as Kosolapov, remain well-established in major cities in Russia.

Given that Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov’s released a video in April 2009 calling for attacks against civilian locations throughout Russia, we believe the rebels have every intention of heeding Umarov’s calls. However, we question the rebels’ ability to maintain a wave of violence against high-level and prominent infrastructure in Russia’s major cities. While we do not rule out the possibility of follow up attacks targeting transportation, housing infrastructure, and economic locations in the near to medium-term, the likelihood of mass violence perpetuated by Chechen rebels returning to Russian cities is unlikely.

The preceding article is part of subscription service created byTotal Intelligence Solutions (TIS). For additional information, please contact Brad Slade at bslade@totalintel.com.

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The RAT H.E.S.T. Knife

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Recreational Equipment Review

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