Britain accused Russian military intelligence on Thursday of directing a host of cyber attacks aimed at undermining Western democracies by sowing confusion in everything from sport to transport and the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In a British assessment based on work by its National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Russian military intelligence (GRU) was cast as a pernicious cyber aggressor which used a network of hackers to spread discord across the world.

GRU, Britain said, was almost certainly behind the BadRabbit and World Anti-Doping Agency attacks of 2017, the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2016 and the theft of emails from a UK-based TV station in 2015.

“The GRU’s actions are reckless and indiscriminate: they try to undermine and interfere in elections in other countries,” said British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

“Our message is clear – together with our allies, we will expose and respond to the GRU’s attempts to undermine international stability,” Hunt said. Britain believes the Russian government is responsible for the attacks.

Though less well known than the Soviet Union’s once mighty KGB, Russia’s military intelligence service played a major role in some of the biggest events of the past century, from the Cuban missile crisis to the annexation of Crimea.

Russian cyber power?

Though commonly known by the acronym GRU, which stands for the Main Intelligence Directorate, its name was formally changed in 2010 to the Main Directorate of the General Staff (or just GU). Its old acronym – GRU – is still more widely used.

It has agents across the globe and answers directly to the chief of the general staff and the Russian defence minister. The GRU does not comment publicly on its actions. Its structure, staff numbers and financing are Russian state secrets.

The GRU traces its history back to the times of Ivan the Terrible, though it was founded as the Registration Directorate in 1918 after the Bolshevik Revolution. Vladimir Lenin insisted on its independence from other secret services.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has said GRU officers used a nerve agent to try to kill former double agent Sergei Skripal, who was found unconscious in the English city of Salisbury in March. Russia has repeatedly denied the charges.

After the Skripal poisoning, the West agreed with Britain’s assessment that Russian military intelligence was to blame and launched the biggest expulsion of Russian spies working under diplomatic cover since the height of the Cold War.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB spy, said on Wednesday that Skripal, a GRU officer who betrayed dozens of agents to Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service, was a “scumbag” who had betrayed Russia.

Britain said the GRU was associated with a host of hackers including APT 28, Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Pawnstorm, Sednit, CyberCaliphate, Cyber Berkut, Voodoo Bear and BlackEnergy Actors.

“This pattern of behaviour demonstrates their desire to operate without regard to international law or established norms and to do so with a feeling of impunity and without consequences,” Foreign Secretary Hunt said.

The United States sanctioned GRU officers including its chief, Igor Korobov, in 2016 and 2018 for attempted interference in the 2016 U.S. election and cyber attacks.

“Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), a Russian military intelligence organization, knowingly engages in significant activities that undermine cybersecurity on behalf of the Russian government,” the U.S. Treasury said in March.

(REUTERS)

“If you have the polling card, you go and vote, but it’s complicated once you’re there,” said Yagana Adi, 55, who wants to vote in Cameroon’s presidential election on Sunday. Her identity papers were lost when she fled an attack on her village by Boko Haram jihadists in 2014.

The raid happened in Djakana in Cameroon’s far north near the Nigerian border and forced her to abandon her home along with her 13 children.

“I said to the children that we were leaving, we walked for hours, days, and we arrived in Maroua,” the regional capital, she said. Two of her daughters did not manage to flee in time and were picked up by jihadists.

Nearly one in 10 people in the far north have followed a similar path to Yagana, fleeing repeated attacks by Boko Haram which is based in neighbouring Nigeria.

Roughly 80,000 have since returned home but 238,000 remain displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration. Many have sought refuge with friends and family in the region’s towns like Maroua.

“If you go into a Maroua neighbourhood, they’re everywhere,” said a humanitarian source on the ground. “The problem is that they don’t have their papers anymore and so can’t register on the voter roll.”

– ‘Challenges for displaced people’? –

The electoral commission Elecam has vowed that those who have been “displaced will be able to vote,” according to the organising body’s regional director Amadou Ali.

“They’re not just displaced people — they are voters. The fact that they’ve been displaced will not have any impact on the election.”

He added that people without their documents will be able to register to vote in the towns where they have sought refuge. “It’s not true, I wasn’t able to get a voting card,” retorted Yagana, as she rested on a mat.

“I’ve requested it but a local official asked me for 40,000 CFA francs ($70, 60 euros).” Yagana and her family are now living on a vacant plot of land lent to her by a Maroua resident where they have erected a makeshift shelter using sheets and tarpaulins.

“I think less than one-third of those displaced in the far north are registered on the voters’ roll,” said Hans de Marie Heungoup, a Cameroonian researcher at the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank.

The region is Cameroon’s most populous and its poorest and has previously voted overwhelmingly for President Paul Biya.

“There’ll be an election in the far north, but who the people vote for is another question,” said a prominent figure in Maroua where Biya made his only appearance of the campaign so far at the weekend. It was also his first visit to the region since 2012.

Majority-francophone Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions — the southwest and northwest — have been rocked by a separatist insurgency since a symbolic independence declaration one year ago.

“The challenges for displaced people to vote there are greater,” said a senior military source based in Yaounde.

– ‘The election? It doesn’t concern us’ –

The army has been deployed to the two restive regions to battle separatist fighters since the end of 2017. According to the ICG, the secessionists control “a significant proportion of rural areas and main roads” in the regions. Skirmishes are violent and occur daily, displacing thousands of local residents.

In the southwest, 246,000 people have been displaced according to the UN, while no estimate exists for the northwest region which is largely inaccessible to aid groups and journalists.

Some 25,000 others are sheltering in neighbouring Nigeria, according to the UN. “The people have sought refuge in the bush and they are living in awful conditions,” said a humanitarian source in Buea. The town is rocked by bursts of gunfire daily, according to local sources.

No reception centres for displaced people have been opened in the anglophone areas where separatists have threatened to disrupt the vote. In the face of continuing clashes, a surge of troops is planned, according to the senior officer.

Elecam has also said that some polling stations will be “relocated” in the anglophone region which has traditionally been a reliable well of votes for the main opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) whose candidate is Joshua Osih.

He has described the planned “relocations” in interviews as “an illegal measure” that could damage his chances. Asked about the looming vote, a student in Douala who fled Buea with his family said: “The election? It doesn’t concern us. I want to get my father’s job and our house back. Here, we are stuck.”

Source: AFP

“Biya was planning to go but security and medics advised otherwise on the visit,” said a well placed source of the last-minute decision to cancel the Buea campaign trip. The 85 year old cancelled his first visit to Southern Cameroons ever since the inception of the Ambazonia uprising from which more than 3000 Ambazonian women and children have been killed by Francophone soldiers loyal to his regime.

Biya instead held an emergency meeting with the visiting President of the Confederation of African Football. Both men including the controversial Cameroonian football legend Samuel Eto’o discussed the delay in infrastructural development and wider insecurity in Southern Cameroons.

Some pro CPDM comedians have criticized the Biya regime’s initial response to the Southern Cameroons crisis and EU officials last week said the government had done too little to adapt to the difficulties posed by the crisis in Anglophone Cameroon.  The European bloc also stated that it was not going to monitor the counterfeit presidential polls.

Cameroon Concord News Group understands candidate Paul Biya also annulled another campaign trip to Kribi. Our Yaounde city reporter noted that the Ministry of Territorial Administration had ordered massive deployment of troops and war machinery to the Fako County in the now Federal Republic of Ambazonia  costing the Cameroonian tax payer hundreds of millions of FCFA.

Joseph Emmanuel Ba’ana, Vice President of the so-called Biya Campaign announced the cancellation but did not provide any details as to the reasons that could have led to this last-minute change. However, a lot of under-the-table talk currently going in the nation’s capital, Yaoundé have it that the Francophone dictator is out of breath, tired and is no longer very motivated to carry on as Head of State. A CPDM baron who recently spoke to our undercover reporter observed that Biya was virtually forced by his entourage to seek the seventh mandate in this election despite his highly catastrophic record.

By Sama Ernest 

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu says his country has completed the delivery of an S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Syria, irrespective of Israeli authorities’ strong opposition that it will pose a serious “challenge” to the Tel Aviv regime.

“We have embarked on a number of activities aimed at strengthening the air defense systems of the Syrian Arab Republic in order to ensure better protection for our military personnel. We have completed the delivery of S-300 complexes. This includes 49 pieces of equipment: illuminating laser radiolocators, defense priority systems, control vehicles and four missile launchers. The work was completed a day ago. We have delivered the whole system to Syria,” Shoigu said at a Russian Security Council meeting chaired by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

The Russian defense minister added that it will take three months to train Syrian specialists to use the S-300 air defense missile system.

Last month, Moscow vowed to bolster Syria’s air defense capabilities by deploying the modern S-300 surface-to-air missile system to the Arab country.

The announcement came in the wake of the accidental downing of an Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft with 15 servicemen on board by Syria’s S-200 air defense systems which were at the time responding to a wave of Israeli strikes on state institutions in Latakia.

Moscow held Israel responsible for the September 17 incident, saying the regime’s pilots had intentionally used the Russian plane as cover to conduct air raids, effectively putting it in the cross hairs of the Syrian air defenses.

On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that Russia had begun delivering the S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Syria.

“The delivery started already and as President (Vladimir) Putin said, after that [downing] incident … the measures that we will take will be devoted to ensuring 100 percent safety and security of our men,” he told a news conference at the United Nations.

Moscow’s decision to supply the air defense system to Syria has raised worries in Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Russia’s decision as “irresponsible,” saying Tel Aviv “will continue to do what it has to do to defend itself.”

Syrian army, allies inflict losses on Daesh in Tulul al-Safa  region

Meanwhile, Syrian government forces, backed by allied fighters from popular defense groups, have dealt heavy blows to Daesh Takfiri terrorists in Tulul al-Safa hilly region, which lies in Syria’s southwestern province of Sweida.

Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that a number of caves, which the extremists used as militant hideouts, in addition to weapons caches were destroyed in the process.

Report: Fateh al-Sham agrees to leave Idlib under pressure from Turkish intelligence service

Additionally, members of foreign-sponsored and Takfiri Jabhat Fateh al-Sham militant group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, have reportedly agreed to withdraw from the demilitarized zone in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib under pressure from the Turkish intelligence service.

Syria’s pro-government al-Watan daily newspaper reported that Turkish intelligence agents have held several meetings with the leaders of the terror outfit, and vowed that the Syrian army would not carry out a military operation in Idlib.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the country.

Source: Presstv

Iran launched a missile attack into eastern Syria targeting militants it blamed for a recent attack on a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, the country’s Revolutionary Guards revealed Monday.

“The headquarters of those responsible for the terrorist crime in Ahvaz was attacked a few minutes ago east of the Euphrates by several ballistic missiles fired by the aerospace branch of the Guardians of the Revolution,” said a statement posted on the official website of the Revolutionary Guards.

State television and the state-run IRNA news agency said the attacks “killed and wounded” militants in Syria, without elaborating. Syrian state media did not immediately acknowledge the strike.

State TV aired footage of one of its reporters standing by as one of the missiles launched, identifying the area as being in Iran’s western province of Kermanshah. A state TV-aired graphic suggested the missiles flew over central Iraq near the city of Tikrit before landing near the city of Abu Kamal, in the far southeast of Syria.

Abu Kamal is held by forces loyal to Syria’s embattled President Bashar Assad. However, the city has been targeted even now by militants from the extremist Islamic State (IS) group, who have lost almost all the territory they once held in Syria and Iraq.

Confusion over who carried out Ahvaz attack

The attack adds to confusion over who carried out an assault on a military parade in Ahvaz on September 22 that killed at least 24 people and wounded over 60.

Iran initially blamed Arab separatists in the southwestern region near the Iraqi border for the attack in which gunmen disguised as soldiers opened fire on the crowd and officials watching the parade from a riser in the southwestern city. Arab separatists also immediately claimed the attack and offered details about one of the attackers that ultimately turned out to be true.

In a blizzard of furious statements from top Iranian officials following the attack, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, accused Iran’s adversaries the United States and some Gulf Arab states of provoking the bloodshed and threatened a tough response.

However the IS group also claimed responsibility for the assault, but initially made factually incorrect claims about it. An IS group video later released by the group’s Amaq agency showed footage of several men that Iran ultimately identified as attackers, though the men in the footage never pledged allegiance to the extremist group.

Targeting ‘takfiris’ and separatists

In announcing the retaliatory attack into eastern Syria, Iranian state media said the missiles targeted both “takfiri” militants – a term it often applies to the IS group – and Ahvazi separatists. The separatists have not been known to work with the IS group in the past.

Last year, Iran fired ballistic missiles into Syria over a bloody IS attack on Tehran targeting parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In September, Iran fired missiles into Iraq targeting a base of an Iranian Kurdish separatist group. The separatists say that strike killed at least 11 people and wounded 50.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)