Libya Lessons Learned Drive Huge Amphib Exercise

ABOARD THE USS WASP: Navy and Marine Corps leaders involved with the huge Bold Alligator amphibious warfare this week will tell you it’s all about the lessons learned. And there was no bigger lesson in amphib combat ops in recent years than Operation Unified Protector, also known as Libya. “Libya [operations] played a huge role”…

MARSOC, Intel Teams Spotlighted In ‘Bold Alligator’

ABOARD THE USS WASP: Ship to shore operations were not the only thing the Navy and Marine Corps looked to sharpen during the biggest amphibious exercise in over a decade. Bold Alligator 2012 featured a significant role for special operations, intelligence and civil affairs units, Col. Scott Aiken, chief of staff for the 2nd Marine…

Iran Unveils New Military Spy Plane, Satellite

WASHINGTON: Iran’s growing military arsenal is about to get a little bigger in the coming months, the country’s defense chief said this week. A new Iranian-built spy plane and satellite are slated to go operational next month, Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi told the official Iranian news agency IRNA yesterday. The new “maritime patrol…

Abrial: NATO Closing ISR, Intel Sharing Gaps Exposed In Libya

WASHINGTON: NATO is wasting no time in taking the painful lessons learned from its peacekeeping mission in Libya and folding them into a new strategy for future operations, the NATO general overseeing that effort said today. The resistance from forces loyal to recently deceased Libyan strongman Col. Muammar Gaddafi was a “strategic surprise” to NATO,…

Combat Commanders Gain Control Of Counterintelligence Ops

Washington: The Pentagon is offering field commanders control of counterintelligence operations to cope with the never-ceasing efforts by countries such as China, Iran and Israel to gain access to classified information and technology. Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Mike Vickers approved the plan in an Oct. 5 memorandum. Groups such as Central Command and Special…

French Pilots Over Libya Decline US Intel; Clearance Just Too Slow

London: French air forces flying strike missions in Libya against Gaddafi’s loyalists are not using detailed imagery and intelligence provided by US airborne surveillance aircraft, according to statements made today by French pilots involved in those sorties. Since the first day of NATO air strikes in Libya, French combat air crews have been struggling to…

U.S. Should Help Secure Libyan WMD, House Intel Chief Says

Washington: The United States must help secure caches of Libyan military hardware, including chemical and biological weapons, so they do not fall into terrorist hands, the head of the House intelligence committee said today. “There are things that should still be done” by American forces in Libya, despite the fact that the U.S. handed over…

Sophisticated Missiles Looted in Libya; WH Terror Czar Worries al Qaeda May Get

Washington: The White House’s top counterterrorism official expressed renewed worries today about terrorists getting their hands on sophisticated surface-to-air weapons as news reports confirmed mass looting of surface-air-missiles by Libya’s new transitional government. John Brennan, speaking at an intelligence conference organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Intelligence and National Security…

Alexander Will Be Last Intel Officer To Head NSA, Hayden Says

CORRECTION Washington: Gen. Keith Alexander will likely be the last military intelligence officer to lead the National Security Agency, former CIA director Mike Hayden said today. “Keith Alexander [will be] the last intelligence officer to be the director of the National Security Agency,” was the hypothesis offered by Hayden during a intelligence and national security…

Air Force Tackles New Intel Mission

Washington: The Pentagon’s top intelligence official has ordered the Air Force to set up a new intelligence unit to analyze the behavior of foreign-based commercial aircraft and integrate intelligence from the combatant commanders as the planes move through American airspace. Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Mike Vickers has tasked Air Force Secretary Michael Donley to…

Senate Presses DIA to Share Raw Data: ‘Connect the Dots’

WASHINGTON: Lawmakers want the Pentagon’s intelligence shop to play nice with the rest of the intelligence community, and they have the program to do just that. Included in the Senate Armed Service Committee’s version of the fiscal year 2012 defense authorization bill, a Defense Intelligence Agency-led “pilot demonstration” program will allow the Pentagon to share…

DigitalAnts™ for Cyber-Defense

Every computer attack is a battle between the owners of a computational infrastructure and adversaries bent on using these resources for their own purposes. The owners may span multiple organizations that have limited trust between them. Meanwhile, human adversaries are adaptively hostile, employing open-ended strategies and anti-forensic techniques. The problem of securing complex infrastructures in…