Mueller: FBI uses drones for surveillance

FBI Director Mueller says the bureau uses drones for surveillance of stationary subjects

Associated Press -

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI uses drones for surveillance of stationary subjects, and the privacy implications of such operations are "worthy of debate," FBI Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday.

He said the law enforcement agency very seldom uses drones now, but is developing guidelines that will shape how unmanned aerial vehicles are to be used.

There will be a number of issues regarding drones "as they become more omnipresent, not the least of which is the drones in airspace and also the threat on privacy," Mueller said in an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"We already have, to a certain extent, a body of law that relates to aerial surveillance and privacy relating to helicopters and small aircraft ... which could well be adapted to the use of drones," Mueller said. "It's still in its nascent stages ... but it's worthy of debate and perhaps legislation down the road."

A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., expressed concern that "the FBI is deploying drone technology while only being in the 'initial stages' of developing guidelines."

Drones allows the FBI to learn critical information that otherwise would be difficult to obtain without introducing serious risk to law enforcement personnel, the law enforcement agency said in a statement following Mueller's comments at the Senate hearing.

The FBI used drones at night during a six-day hostage standoff in Alabama earlier this year. The standoff ended when members of an FBI rescue team stormed an underground bunker, killing gunman Jimmy Lee Dykes before he could harm a 5-year-old boy held hostage.

The FBI said its unmanned aerial vehicles are used only to conduct surveillance operations on stationary subjects. In each instance, the FBI first must obtain the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration to use the aircraft in a very confined geographic area.

The aerospace industry forecasts a worldwide deployment of almost 30,000 drones by 2018, with the United States accounting for half of them.

Soldier's Reaction: If the Taliban Are Willing to Talk, Perhaps We Should, Too

A Veteran Reflects on His Time at War as it Draws to a Close

Jonathan Raab, second from left, with ANP and Army soldiers

COMMENTARY | With the Taliban now open to direct talks with the U.S., I've been reflecting on my own experiences as a soldier in Afghanistan.

I deployed as an infantryman with the Army in 2007 and 2008. During one week-long stretch in the summer, our mission was to conduct patrols along the major roads in Logar Province. We searched for illegal weapons and fleeing Taliban fighters.

The operation came in response to an ambush of U.S. Army personnel. The Taliban had successfully defeated a small U.S. force, stealing weapons, equipment, and even the bodies of two soldiers.

For more than a week straight, we operated with very little sleep, and few opportunities to shower or eat a hot meal. We drove our Humvees up and down highways and lonely dirt roads, searching vehicles, looking for the enemy, and hoping we might be able to get retribution for the dead Americans.

The Taliban were then -- as they are now -- resourceful, cunning, and often invisible.

Our forces would clear a village -- and the Taliban would disappear into the population. The Army might pronounce a village or route "clear" -- but we all knew this wasn't the case. The Taliban simply sat back and watched us exhaust ourselves by spending time, fuel, and manpower.

Our Army is very good at providing a show of force -- like we did that summer in Logar Province -- but we have been unwilling to sustain a presence in the villages and the countryside. During the day, we owned the terrain within reach of our weapons. At night, the Taliban would return.

Sometimes, who the Taliban were was up for debate. One village elder once told my commanding officer, "There are good Taliban, and bad Taliban. We want to get rid of the bad Taliban." A farmer who helps dig a hole for an IED to help feed his family is not a hardcore jihadist; a young boy forced to carry an AK-47 at night probably isn't mainline Taliban, either.

Complicating the fight was the corruption of the Afghan National Police. Many of them were stealing equipment, fuel, food, and weapons -- sometimes selling items directly to the Taliban. When I would take part in foot patrols through many villages, the Afghan citizens would tell me that the police were more corrupt and dangerous than the Taliban.

Our commanders are content to sit on large, overprotected bases, and not pursue the enemy in a meaningful way. Since we are not willing to commit to win the war, perhaps it's better that we negotiate.

The Taliban recognize that we are leaving Afghanistan, and for all of our technology and firepower, we remain unable to gain the trust of the common people.

In the summer of 2008, the average Afghan citizen saw our big operation through Logar Province as a show of force that ultimately proved fruitless. In the summer of 2013, I suspect the average Afghan -- and the Taliban themselves -- sees our military might as irrelevant.

Threat level was high before UN attack in Somalia

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, center, walks out from a room to take questions from the journalists after he visited the China National Low Carbon Day Exhibition at the Capital Museum in Beijing, China Thursday, June 20, 2013. Ban on Thursday expressed outrage over Wednesday's attack by al-Qaida-linked militants to the U.N. compound in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, which killed at least 13 people. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — During the years when Mogadishuresembled one big battlefield, the U.N. and other aid workers trying to improve Somalia often lived in the comfortable, modern and largely safe capital of Kenya.

As security improved in Mogadishu over the last two years and the lives of Somalis returned to a semblance of normal, those jobs began shifting from Nairobi back to Mogadishu.

On Wednesday, a truck bomb and gunfire attack by al-Shabab militants on the main U.N. compound in Mogadishu killed eight U.N. employees and five Somali civilians, showing just how dangerous that shift has been.

A U.N. official told The Associated Press on Thursday that in the weeks preceding the attack the threat level had been elevated around the city's airport, the heart of military and diplomatic efforts in the city. The militant attack took place just across the street.

A second U.N. official said the Mogadishu operations have been under a consistent threat for years but that he wasn't aware of a specific, elevated threat. Both U.N. officials insisted on anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

The attack may give even more pause to aid workers who have been hesitant to transfer their work from Nairobi to Mogadishu.

"It's not going to make it easier to attract people to work in Mogadishu," said Ben Parker, the spokesman for the U.N. mission in Somalia. He added later: "I have not heard of anybody talking about quitting because of this incident ... You probably wouldn't have taken a job in Mogadishu if you were risk averse."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was on a visit to Beijing on Thursday, expressed outrage at the "despicable" attack and the said the U.N. won't be deterred from its work.

The world body is in a difficult spot in Somalia because it must balance two competing objectives: keeping staff safe while also carrying out its mandate to promote the rule of law, human rights, women's empowerment and the protection of children.

Assuring safety and advancing those goals are often at odds, said one of the U.N. officials who insisted on anonymity. But the Somali government has increased demands that the U.N.'s international staff work in Mogadishu, not from remote offices in Nairobi, he said.

"There is a tremendous amount of money that continues to be spent on Somalia with very little visible impact, so the donors themselves are really tired of this. And they are putting a great deal of pressure on us to move forward," the official said.

The U.N. is a voluntary force but for smaller aid groups, a move from Nairobi to Mogadishu might be a job requirement.

"Working here is still a matter of a game chance. Let's not be overly optimistic at this point," said Fadumo Dahir, an aid worker based in Mogadishu. "Many have not yet decided to move back to here. They have instead quit their jobs for safety reasons."

A Nairobi-based aid worker who travels to Somalia said the humanitarian community knows the risks it faces in Somalia but also knows it must return. The worker, who also insisted on anonymity because his organization does not permit him to speak publicly, said many people with experience in places like Afghanistan are volunteering to go to Mogadishu.

"Maybe yesterday changes the perspective a little. Maybe it decreases the overall number of people" willing to go, he said. But everyone who is there understands the risk, he said.

The aid worker said reports had circulated in recent weeks of an increased security threat, though no governments made any public announcements. In April, al-Shabab militants carried out a massive attack on Mogadishu's court complex. Britain's Foreign Office released a travel warning on Somalia two days before.

Parker, the U.N. spokesman, said the U.N. clearly faces risks in Mogadishu but he wasn't aware of an elevated threat level. The U.N.'s Assistance Mission in Somalia, though, only opened on June 3, and Parker said he was too new to properly evaluate the threat level.

Parker said he took the job in Mogadishu because it's an exciting time in the seaside capital as the country seems like it is at a turning point toward the positive.

On Thursday, the U.N. worked to recover personal belongings from the targeted compound, including passports. A security review will take place but the U.N. doesn't plan to abandon the targeted compound, Parker said.

The aid worker said a dark cloud was hanging over the humanitarian community Thursday, with many still in shock.

"You feel it in the air," he said. "Everyone is very sad, and some are traumatized."

___

Straziuso reported from Nairobi, Kenya.

What's Obama's strategy for Syria?

Go figure.

President Barack Obama decided to arm Syria's rebels earlier this week. That sound you are now hearing? Raspberries, both from people who want the US government to throw its full weight behind a rebel victory, and from those who think the US should wait out the Syrian civil war on the sidelines.

Obama has pulled the classic maneuver of a compromise that satisfies no one and irritates everyone. But the decision, and the points of agreement from various analysts who disagree sharply about what the US should be doing, is particularly troubling in what it says about the lack of strategic care going into all of this (one commentator on twitter said it was looking like an "etch-a-sketch intervention.")

Does President Obama have a strategic objective in mind? He hasn't outlined one in public yet, and it's hard to divine one amid the morass of unnamed sources quoted in DC press reporting on the decision.

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Sure, the US would like a stable, democratic Syria that's friendly to America and Israel, hostile to Sunni jihadis and the Shiite movement Hezbollah, and distant from Iran. Obama says he'd like to see a negotiated, political transition - notwithstanding both sides are committed to victory and nothing but victory. But that is just an empty aspiration if there isn't a meaningful road-map for getting from point A to point Z. That's not to say the US must have an answer to this question, or even that there's a plausible one to be found. Sometimes the best you can hope for is to ride the tiger and limit the fallout for your own interests.

But best practice in those kind of situations is to not to get involved in the conflict at all. Simply pouring more weapons into the situation and hoping for the best isn't a smart option. And if the Obama administration has cracked the code, or thinks it has, it's time it starts sharing that with the American public before the US risks getting dragged into another Middle Eastern war.

What's more, the limited amount of support currently on offer is highly unlikely to lead to anything resembling a decisive advantage for the rebellion writ large, particularly if the US is successful in keeping the new weapons out of the hands of jihadi groups like Jabhat al-Nusra - among the most effective fighters on the opposition side.

Criticism of Obama's decision have been pointed - both from people who want a robust US effort to help the rebels win, and from those who think the US should steer clear entirely. Shadi Hamid is in the former camp, and he writes that:

What makes Obama's decision so unsatisfying -- and even infuriating -- to both sides is that even he seems to acknowledge this. As the New York Times reports, "Mr. Obama expressed no confidence it would change the outcome, but privately expressed hope it might buy time to bring about a negotiated settlement."

To some extent like the 2010 Afghanistan "surge," this is a tactical move that seems almost entirely detached from any clear, long-term strategy. A source of constant and sometimes Kafkaesque debate among interpreters of Obama's Syria policy is figuring out what exactly the policy is in the first place. Secretary of State John Kerry has been promoting the Geneva II peace conference, but his explanations of US goals have tended to confuse. For example, there is this: "The goal of Geneva II is to implement Geneva I." But no one is quite sure what the goals of Geneva I were, except perhaps to "lay the groundwork" for Geneva II.

George Washington University's Marc Lynch, an occasional adviser to the administration on Middle East foreign policy who would like to see the US limit it's military involvement in the war, writes the decision to send weapons is probably Obama's "worst foreign policy decision since taking office."

Nobody in the administration seems to have any illusions that arming the rebels is likely to work. The argument over arming the FSA has been raging for well over a year, driven by the horrific levels of death and devastation, fears of regional destabilization, the inadequacy of existing policies, concerns about credibility over the ill-conceived chemical weapons red line, and a relentless campaign for intervention led by hawkish media, think tanks, Congress, and some European and regional allies.

... Obama's move is likely meant as a way to "do something," and perhaps to give Secretary John Kerry something to work with diplomatically on the way to Geneva II, while deflecting pressure for more aggressive steps. The logic behind the steps has been thoroughly aired by now. The dominant idea is that these arms will help to pressure Assad to the bargaining table, strengthen the "moderate" groups within the opposition while marginalizing the jihadists in the rebellion's ranks, and assert stronger U.S. leadership over the international and regional proxy war. Much of it sounds like magical thinking.

Earlier this week columnist Jeffrey Goldberg reported that Gen. Martin Dempsey dressed down Secretary Kerry over the apparent absence of clear objectives and the danger of directly attacking the Syrian government. Mr. Goldberg cites this only to "several sources" with no further identification, so the usual caveats apply as to the motives and honesty of the anonymous. But if true, it's a fascinating window into the debate between the professional soldiers and civilian leaders in the Obama administration.

At a principals meeting in the White House situation room, Secretary of State John Kerry began arguing, vociferously, for immediate U.S. airstrikes against airfields under the control of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime -- specifically, those fields it has used to launch chemical weapons raids against rebel forces.

It was at this point that the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the usually mild-mannered Army General Martin Dempsey, spoke up, loudly. According to several sources, Dempsey threw a series of brushback pitches at Kerry, demanding to know just exactly what the post-strike plan would be and pointing out that the State Department didn’t fully grasp the complexity of such an operation.

Dempsey informed Kerry that the Air Force could not simply drop a few bombs, or fire a few missiles, at targets inside Syria: To be safe, the U.S. would have to neutralize Syria’s integrated air-defense system, an operation that would require 700 or more sorties. At a time when the U.S. military is exhausted, and when sequestration is ripping into the Pentagon budget, Dempsey is said to have argued that a demand by the State Department for precipitous military action in a murky civil war wasn’t welcome.

... Dempsey was adamant: Without much of an entrance strategy, without anything resembling an exit strategy, and without even a clear-eyed understanding of the consequences of an American airstrike, the Pentagon would be extremely reluctant to get behind Kerry’s plan.

The talk of many of the purveyors of conventional DC wisdom about all this is instructive in its fundamental incoherence. Consider the musings of David Ignatius yesterday about the White House's plans.

In Ignatius' estimation "the reality is that, despite his decision last week to arm the opposition there, Obama is still playing for a negotiated diplomatic transition" and that "Obama wants to bolster moderate opposition forces under Gen. Salim Idriss until they’re strong enough to negotiate a transitional government. He wants to counter recent offensives by Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed forces aiding President Bashar al-Assad. And he wants to keep Arab nations from bolting the U.S.-led coalition backing Idriss and instead arming radical jihadists."

It's hard to know where to start with the above. Some Arab nations already are arming jihadis, and the efforts to arm the "nice" rebels exclusively haven't worked, with strong evidence that weapons that started to flow through Jordan at the end of last year quickly ended up in the hands of jihadi fighters, who have been an enormous battlefield asset to the uprising.

Strong enough to "negotiate a transitional government?" That in reality would be "strong enough to win." Assad and his supporters view the fight as one for existence and survival, have the backing of Iran and Russia, and see little upside in negotiating a "transition" that ends up with them in exile or swinging from the gallows. If Assad doesn't fear imminent defeat, he isn't going to negotiate his exit. And rebel commanders, both under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and of the jihadis, have been united in demanding Assad's removal from power as a precondition for any meaningful peace talks.

Finally, it's unclear what the sending of light weapons - Obama has been frustratingly vague on what exactly he's willing to give them, and it will take a while to set up supply routes and vetting procedures - will do to substantially change the situation. The Syrian army is professional and well-equipped; Hezbollah is one of the most capable fighting forces in the region. Without anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft weapons - and professional training in their use - it's hard to see extra bullets or rifles making much of a difference beyond, perhaps, prolonging the agony.

Meanwhile, Russia looks on. President Vladimir Putin drew his own red line this week over any kind of no-fly or no-drive zone over Syria. His country continues to hold back on a promised delivery of the advanced S-300 anti-aircraft system to Assad that has alarmed Israel and the US. The greater the US slips towards a policy of regime change, the more likely he is to deliver those and perhaps other weapons.

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Arab Islamist rebels, Kurds clash in northern Syria

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Islamist rebels have cut access to a Kurdish area in northern Syria and clashed with Kurdish nationalist PKK fighters whom they accuse of backing President Bashar al-Assad, sources on both sides said on Thursday.

The confrontation threatens to open a new front in Syria's 27-month-old civil war, in which Kurds, who form about 10 percent of the population, have so far played a limited role.

Fighting erupted overnight on the edge of Ifrin, a rugged, olive-growing area on the Turkish border, the sources said. Four people were killed, bringing to at least 30 the death toll from battles and assassinations in the last few days. Dozens more have been taken in tit-for-tat kidnappings, the sources said.

Tensions between Arabs and Kurds, whose relationship is riven by land disputes, especially in eastern Syria, have risen since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011.

Thousands of Kurds joined peaceful pro-democracy protests early on in the revolt but the community has mostly stayed out of the armed and largely Islamist insurgency that followed.

Although Kurdish politicians hold senior posts in the mostly Arab Sunni Muslim opposition, attempts to bring the main Kurdish parties into the umbrella Syrian National Coalition have failed, amid rows over how to define Kurdish rights in a future Syria.

Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, has pulled his troops out of cities in eastern Syria and out of many parts of Ifrin in the northwest, in effect granting the Kurds an autonomy many of them fear losing if he is toppled.

Ifrin was thrust deeper into the conflict when Assad's forces reinforced Zahra and Nubbul, two Shi'ite villages situated between Ifrin and the divided city of Aleppo, as part of an apparent attempt to capture the rural north, a supply line to Aleppo and to various rebel-held areas in the interior.

Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah fighters deployed in Zahra and Nubbul. The army also airlifted troops and loyalist militia to an area in Ifrin behind rebel lines, opposition sources said.

ECONOMIC DISRUPTION

Accusing PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) fighters of supplying the two villages, Islamist rebels cut main roads from Ifrin to the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo this month, causing prices of basic goods in Ifrin to soar, residents said.

Kurdish farmers are also struggling to market their crops, the sources said, with rebels extorting high fees at roadblocks.

"Ifrin has been sympathetic to the revolution but the rebels are not serving their cause by what they are doing," said Abboud Hakim, a retired government official in Ifrin.

"They accuse the PKK of delivering supplies to Nubbul and Zahra when they themselves let trucks go there if they pay them at the roadblocks," he said.

Rebel sources said the overnight clashes began when PKK gunmen attacked a roadblock held by an offshoot of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front near Jindaris, a Kurdish town southwest of Ifrin city, despite a truce brokered two days earlier by Colonel Mustafa al-Sheikh, a moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander.

Under the deal between the FSA and the Kurdish Protection Units, a de facto PKK unit, the siege on Ifrin was to be lifted on Wednesday and both sides were to have freed their prisoners.

An opposition source in northern Syria said the ceasefire deal had little effect because Sheikh had only limited influence on the Islamist brigades which hold sway on the ground.

The PKK, the source said, also seemed to have little interest in the deal, especially after Arab reconciliation delegates sent to Ifrin were reportedly killed a few weeks ago.

Massoud Akko, a Kurdish activist based in Norway, said the conflict in Ifrin had become turf warfare with scant relevance to the Kurdish cause or the aims of the anti-Assad revolt.

"Even if the Kurdish Protection Units have committed violations, it does not justify besieging 150,000 civilians living in over 300 villages," Akko said. "The rebel forces are using the same methods of collective punishment as Assad."

In Aleppo, opposition activists reported the heaviest fighting in months as rebels fought to claw back gains by Assad's forces in several districts. Pro-Assad forces came under attack in al-Sakhour. Fighting also raged in Suleiman Halabi, a district largely held by Assad's loyalists.

(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Beirut; Editing by Alistair Lyon)