Category: Intelligence

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NATO Military Committee visits Qatar

Source: NATO

From 4 to 8 November 2024, the NATO Military Committee was in Qatar for a series of high-level engagements and visits of Qatar’s military education and training facilities. This visit marked the first time the NATO Military Committee travelled to Qatar. The high-level engagements that took place during the visit involved the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, H.E. Dr Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah and the Chief of Staff of the Qatar Armed Forces, Lieutenant-General Salem bin Hamad bin Aqeel Al-Nabit. The goal of the visit was to discuss ongoing and future strategic and operational cooperation between Qatar and NATO.

The visit began with high-level meetings with H.E. Dr Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah, Lieutenant-General Salem bin Hamad bin Aqeel Al-Nabit and Chair of the NATO Military Committee Admiral Rob Bauer. In the meetings they discussed NATO’s commitment to a strong partnership with the State of Qatar, as well as praise for Qatar’s enhanced commitment on military cooperation with NATO. Admiral Bauer stated: “Ever since Qatar joined the Istanbul Cooperation initiative in 2005, we have worked together to increase security and stability in this region and beyond. In this ever more complex security environment, cooperation between Partners is more important than ever.”
Lieutenant-General Al-Nabit emphasized the importance of Qatar’s partnership with NATO: “The partnership between the State of Qatar and NATO is unparalleled. We are experiencing close cooperation in the field of defence diplomacy, training, education and operation. Qatar is an active partner in multiple NATO programs. We intend to expand our cooperation to the benefit of Qatar, NATO, and the whole world.”

After an initial day focused on discussions with Qatari authorities and presentations from both the Qatar Armed forces and NATO, the subsequent days were devoted to visiting facilities dedicated to training these forces. These visits started with the 401 Integrated Training Center, a brand-new facility designed for special forces training, including a mock village, an embassy compound, free fall training, driving and different shooting ranges, and even an Airbus A300 dedicated to simulate hostage scenarios.

Other visits included the Military Police Camp, as well as the Al Zeem Mohamed Bin Abdullah Al Attiyah Air college, dedicated to education and training of all roles within the Air Force, including pilots, fighter controllers, air traffic controllers, and drone pilots for the Qatari Armed Forces. It also serves members from other nations who send their students to this state to the art education and training center. The NATO Military Representatives also visited the Brouq Training Center, with maritime intervention training capabilities, and, at last, the Joint Warfare Training Center, where the Military Committee learned about its role in both the Operational Capabilities Concept (OCC) and the Partnership Training and Education Centres (PTECs).

In his closing remarks, Admiral Bauerexpressed gratitude to the Qatari military authorities for their remarkable hospitality and the impressive capabilities they displayed: “Based on what we have seen this week, especially from your inspiring young leaders, both men and women, I can honestly say that the future, your future, is in safe hands. And combined with your world-class facilities, your commitment to education and training, and to working with others including NATO, I am confident that new milestones lie ahead in our cooperation with Qatar.”

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NATO Through Time podcast – NATO’s missions with General Jennie Carignan

Source: NATO

The NATO Through Time podcast dives deep into NATO’s history, reflecting on how the past influences the present – and future – of the longest-lasting alliance in history. This episode features General Jennie Carignan, the head of the Canadian Armed Forces, who reflects on her participation in three of NATO’s major operations and missions.

Why does NATO conduct missions outside of its territory? 
What were the different aims and lessons learned of NATO’s missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan and Iraq? 
What is Canada’s role in a transatlantic alliance that is often framed as a balancing act between the United States and European Allies? 

In this episode, General Jennie Carignan, Chief of the Defence Staff of the Canadian Armed Forces, walks us through her distinguished military career. She served on a demining team during a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, led an engineering regiment during a combat mission in Afghanistan, and was the first woman to lead a NATO mission when she took command of the advisory and capacity-building mission in Iraq in 2019. She also reflects on Canada’s role in NATO, including its contributions to the Alliance’s forward presence in Latvia, and her place in history as the first woman to lead Canada’s military.

The podcast is available on YouTube, and on all major podcast platforms, including:

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Bridging the gap: supporting cross-border access to electronic evidence

Source: Europol

In a rapidly changing online environment, law enforcement and judicial authorities need support to cope with the complexity and volume of information and to develop their knowledge when obtaining electronic data from service providers based in other jurisdictions. The SIRIUS project, co-implemented by Europol and Eurojust, supports investigators with a variety of services, such as guidelines, trainings and tools, to…

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NATO Secretary General meets with European leaders in Hungary

Source: NATO

Today (7 November 2024), Secretary General Mark Rutte participated in a meeting of the European Political Community in Budapest, Hungary.

The meeting was an opportunity for European leaders to discuss a broad range of security challenges and the importance of working together to address them. This included exchanges not only on traditional threats and challenges but also on issues like economic security and critical dependencies. Mr. Rutte highlighted the importance of working together – not only across the European community but through NATO and its global partners as well. He noted the growing alignment between Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, which are working together to support Russia’s war against Ukraine – a reality that has broader impacts. In exchange for this support, Rutte said, “Russia is delivering technology to North Korea” that will enable the DPRK to “threaten the US mainland, continental Europe and our Indo-Pacific partners”. “These are new, dangerous developments that we need to discuss together.”

In the margins of the meeting in Budapest, the Secretary General met with a number of other leaders including the host, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Albanian President Edi Rama, and others.

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New Secretary General begins work as INTERPOL General Assembly closes

Source: Interpol (news and events)

7 November 2024

Valdecy Urquiza takes the helm of the world’s largest law enforcement organization

GLASGOW, United Kingdom – The 92nd INTERPOL General Assembly has closed with delegates endorsing a range of actions to strengthen the Organization’s capabilities and operational support under the leadership of the new Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza.

In a special address to the General Assembly, on behalf of His Majesty The King, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh offered heartfelt thanks for the hard work and dedication of police around the world.

In the face of the increasing threat posed by organized crime, a series of resolutions aimed at enhancing a coordinated global law enforcement response were approved.

The need for greater information sharing to better inform the evolving terrorism threat intelligence picture and the links to organized crime and its polycriminality was underlined by delegates.

A series of interactive and multi-regional panels addressed key areas including:

  • the profound impact of technological advances on policing and how law enforcement can navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape to enhance capabilities while addressing the challenges it presents.
  • the benefits of community-focused policing in successfully combating criminality and highlighting crime types that adversely affect women and girls around the globe.
  • the national strategic objectives that shape the sharing of biometric data between countries, as well as the key legal, financial and operational challenges.
  • the risk of fragmentation and the need for a comprehensive and multilateral response to the current and future threats to ensure human security and sustainable development.

Recognizing the crucial importance of inter-agency work at the national and international level, delegates also supported the signing of a cooperation agreement with the World Health Organization.

The agreement will support a concrete collaboration between law enforcement and public health around the world, in order to effectively address health threats to human populations, from tackling counterfeit and illicit medical products, to the prevention of and response to biological incidents.

Delegates also elected nine new members to the Executive Committee who will each serve a three-year term (2024 – 2027):

  • Mohammed Dkhissi, Morocco – Vice President for Africa
  • Mary D. Rodriguez, United States of America – Vice President for the Americas
  • Liam Price, Canada – Delegate for the Americas
  • Luis Alejandro Rolle, Argentina – Delegate for the Americas
  • Ali Mohammed Al Ali, Qatar – Delegate for Asia
  • Yong Wang, China – Delegate for Asia
  • Thorsten Kunst, Germany – Delegate for Europe
  • Lucas Philippe, France – Delegate for Europe
  • Mustafa Serkan Sabanca, Türkiye – Delegate for Europe

The Executive Committee, which meets three times a year, has 13 members in total, comprising the President, three vice-presidents and nine delegates representing the Organization’s four regions – Africa, Americas, Asia and Europe.

The 92nd session of the General Assembly met from 4 – 7 November in Glasgow, United Kingdom, and was attended by some 1,000 participants, including 65 Chiefs of Police, from 179 countries.

The next session of the General Assembly will take place in Marrakesh, Morocco in 2025.

Delegates also voted for future General Assembly sessions to be held in Hong Kong, China (2026), Doha, Qatar (2027) and Seoul, Republic of Korea (2029).

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National personnel directors discuss NATO’s role for supporting military personnel

Source: NATO

For the first time, Allied personnel policy directors met in Brussels (4 – 5 November 2024) to share best practices, lessons learned, and ideas for a larger NATO role in addressing challenges in recruiting and retaining military personnel. The discussions were co-chaired by NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning Angus Lapsley and Deputy Chair of the NATO Military Committee Lt. Gen Andrew M. Rohling.

At the Washington Summit, leaders reiterated the importance of providing the necessary forces, capabilities, resources, and infrastructure for NATO’s collective defence plans. Such discussions are crucial to improve our ability to generate, train, and sustain troops across domains at higher readiness, to be able to defend every Ally.

Allies discussed the increasing demand for personnel in the new era of collective defence, shared national best practices, and discussed the way ahead. They will continue these discussions and elevate personnel and military workforce issues, as part of NATO’s political agenda, alongside financial and defence industry topics.

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NSA Inducts Five Innovators into Cryptologic Hall of Honor

Source: National Security Agency NSA

The National Security Agency’s (NSA) Center for Cryptologic History is pleased to announce the induction of five major cryptologic figures into the Cryptologic Hall of Honor.
 
The 2024 inductees are:

  • Francis N. Allen – NSA’s analytic achievements against the Soviet target in the 1980s would not have been possible without the development work performed by Frank Allen. Allen provided key knowledge not only to analysis and reporting, but to development of sophisticated collection and processing systems. He created the series of Soviet Telecommunications Handbooks, guidebooks of the parameters of the wide variety of Soviet systems that were used worldwide by collectors and analysts alike.
  • ​Joanne B. Perriens – Perriens was a groundbreaking analyst, leader, and glass-ceiling-shattering pioneer. She began her career at Arlington Hall, then moved with NSA to Fort Meade in the mid-1950s. From her earliest assignments she worked Soviet and Eastern Bloc targets, and did so for decades in myriad positions. Perriens was a strong advocate for personnel and their career development, and aggressively supported the promotion of women into the Agency’s higher ranks. She sent official memos to three successive DIRNSAs, challenging them to increase the number of women in senior positions. Mrs. Perriens’ actions resulted in great strides forward in diversity issues.
  • James R. Child – The accomplishments of James Child, a Senior Language Research Analyst at the National Cryptologic School, have arguably affected every single government linguist since the 1970s. Child’s lasting contribution to NSA—already recognized by government and academia—was the revolution he launched in language instruction and testing, as well as the specific tools to maintain proficiency standards. 
  • ​Patrick R. Gallagher, Jr. – Gallagher, an electrical engineer, laid the foundations for what are now the Cybersecurity Directorate and the Laboratory for Advanced Cybersecurity Research. Additionally, he established NSA’s relationship with the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), which is as critical today as it was in his time. Gallagher guided both the Trusted Product Evaluation Program (TPEP) and the Commercial COMSEC Endorsement Program (CCEP). These programs were the foundation of cryptographic evaluation for decades, and the underlying security principles established within them are applied to this day.
  • Theodore Eric Nave, CAPT, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Navy, OBE – CAPT Nave contributed significantly to the safety and security of Allied countries throughout a career spanning the period 1917 to 1949. His foundational work unravelling Japanese Naval telegraphy and breaking Imperial Japanese Naval codes was instrumental in supporting Allied operational forces in the South West Pacific Area, led by General Douglas MacArthur. Throughout a career in both the Australian and British navies, Nave played a foundational role in training Allied analysts, which was just as critical to allied codebreaking success as his individual achievements. A passionate advocate for an Australian peacetime SIGINT capability, Nave was closely involved in establishing the Defense Signals Bureau at the end of World War II (now the Australian Signals Directorate). In 1946, he led the delegation that ensured Australia’s inclusion in the Five Eyes signals intelligence arrangements, which continue to this day.

​The next call for nominations will be issued in early 2025, but any individual or group can make a nomination at any time.
 
Individuals or groups nominated for the Cryptologic Hall of Honor must have made a significant contribution through cryptology to America’s national security. This may have been through a single event or a lifetime of superior achievements in cryptology. Individuals who worked for the government must have departed government cryptologic service at least 10 years prior to the nomination. Non-U.S. individuals or groups are also eligible for consideration, and their achievements, too, must have occurred at least 10 years prior to the nomination.

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Support to German-Cypriot operation against fake investment platforms robbing victims of EUR 10 million

Source: Eurojust

German and Cypriot authorities have launched a coordinated operation to block 13 fake investment platforms, with support from Eurojust and Europol. During a joint action day in Cyprus and Germany, four suspects were arrested for defrauding victims of millions of euros and for money laundering. The fraud was run from a call centre based in Cyprus and robbed victims of at least EUR 10 million.

The alleged perpetrators used a well-known modus operandi: cybertrading. This method involves promising high profits and drawing customers through professionally designed, credible websites and social media. They also operated a call centre where members of the organised crime group behind the fraudulent sites posted as professional trading experts.

Approximately 170 German investors were lured into making online transfers, without receiving any real returns on their investments. Instead, they were shown fake statistics indicating that they had made substantial profits. The victims of the fraudulent online system subsequently lost all their money. Initial estimates put the total loss at no less than EUR 10 million.

The investigation was opened in the beginning of 2024 by the Bavarian Central Office for the Prosecution of Cybercrime, which contacted Eurojust in April. Eurojust helped to organise a meeting in Cyprus between the German and Cypriot authorities to exchange information and establish direct links.

The Agency also assisted in the execution of European Investigation Orders and provided background information and research documents. Europol supported the investigation by deploying an expert to Cyprus, during the coordinated action on 4 November. During the coordinated action in Germany and Cyprus, authorities searched 13 locations, arrested 4 suspects, and seized cash, luxury watches and 2 vehicles.

The following authorities initiated and supported the coordinated actions on the ground:

  • Germany: General Public Prosecutor’s Office Bamberg – Bavarian Central Office for the Prosecution of Cybercrime; Criminal Police Inspectorate Amberg
  • Cyprus: Cyprus Police
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NATO’s Special Representative for the Southern Neighbourhood visits Jordan

Source: NATO

NATO’s Special Representative for the Southern Neighbourhood, Javier Colomina, travelled to Jordan, on 6 November 2024. This was his first visit to the country in his new capacity. He met with high-level officials, including the Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, the Political Advisor to the King and the Director of General Intelligence. He welcomed the growing strategic partnership between NATO and Jordan and discussed issues of mutual interest, including regional security challenges.

“Jordan is one of the strongest NATO partners and a key player in the region and beyond,” said Mr Colomina. “I was pleased to receive in-depth views by my counterparts on regional developments and welcomed the tireless diplomacy efforts by His Majesty King Abdallah II bin al-Hussein to prevent further escalation of the war in the Middle East,” he added. He also underlined the continued work to strengthen international and regional cooperation in the fight against terrorism including by exploring further synergies between NATO activities and the approach through the “Aqaba Process” launched by His Majesty King Abdallah II al-Hussein in 2015. The Special Representative assured his interlocutors that assistance on border security through the NATO Defence Capacity Building package remains a priority, emphasizing “it is important to respond to the security needs of our partners”.

Mr. Colomina also discussed the final preparations for the establishment of a NATO Liaison Office in Amman which is a pivotal element of an Action Plan approved by Allied leaders at the NATO Summit in Washington D.C., this past July, for a stronger, more strategic and result-oriented NATO approach towards our southern neighbourhood. He pointed out that this new office is “a key priority for Allies”, explaining that it will mark the next significant milestone in the NATO-Jordan strategic partnership, further strengthen political dialogue and practical cooperation between NATO and Jordan, and contribute to enhance NATO’s presence and visibility in the southern neighbourhood.

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INTERPOL-led coalition arrests 100 mafia suspects

Source: Interpol (news and events)

INTERPOL’s I-CAN project targets the ‘Ndrangheta, Italy’s most powerful mafia.

GLASGOW, United Kingdom: An international police coalition coordinated by INTERPOL has led to the arrest of more than 100 key ‘Ndrangheta members since the project’s launch in 2020.

The 100th and 101st arrests occurred during a coordinated operation last month supported by INTERPOL in Germany and Italy.

German authorities raided three houses in the cities of Ulm and Göppingen, seizing a large cache of information, including cloud data. The police also found significant amounts of cash, luxury watches and jewelry.

The Italian authorities acted in parallel, arresting two suspects, seizing multiple properties and vehicles, and freezing bank accounts.

A Calabrian businessman with alleged links to two ‘Ndrangheta clans was arrested in Bologna while a second suspect was arrested the same day in the city of Formia.

The operation took place within the framework of an investigation led by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza in Bologna.

INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock said:

“The ‘Ndrangheta are a global scourge and demonstrate the unprecedented threat posed by transnational organized crime groups. Yet the success of the I-CAN project makes clear that even the most powerful mafias are not out of reach when law enforcement cooperates across borders.”

Giampiero Ianni, Brigadier General of the Guardia di Finanza, said:

“I-CAN’s 101 arrests show there is no escape for members of the ‘Ndrangheta. With the support of INTERPOL, we have been able to investigate this insidious organization, mapping its international development and working together with prosecutors to apprehend its fugitives.”

The arrests occurred during a coordinated operation last month supported by INTERPOL in Germany and Italy.

The ‘Ndrangheta is often considered one of the most extensive and powerful criminal organizations in the world.

Its roots are in the Italian region of Calabria but it has now expanded to more than 40 countries worldwide and continues to grow at a steady rate.

The insidious spread of mafia-type crime poses an urgent threat to international peace and security, due to its penetration of political and economic environments and the widespread corruption associated with it.

Funded by the Italian Department of Public Security, INTERPOL’s I-CAN project raises global awareness and understanding about the ‘Ndrangheta and their modus operandi, sharing police information to dismantle their networks and operations and arrest wanted suspects.