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BALKANS-SATELLITE IMAGERY

• The BBC’s Newsnight, June 12 and a front-page article in The Guardian claim that European satellite viewers can watch live broadcasts of peacekeeping and anti-terrorist operations being conducted by U.S. spy planes over the Balkans. Surveillance flights in the Balkans are beaming their pictures over an insecure satellite link—and anyone can tune in and watch their operations live, said the BBC. It added that the discovery was made last November by a satellite enthusiast in north west England, who said he spent months e-mailing and faxing U.S. and other allied military officers to warn them of the dangers before finally deciding to go public. The program stressed that NATO and American spokesmen queried on the issue said the pictures were unclassified and would reveal nothing of value to a potential enemy. It suggested, however, that at the very least, "the broadcasts allow a Karadzic or a smuggler to check before they step outside their front door whether any NATO surveillance aircraft are in the sky and what they are doing." AP and Reuters highlight that asked about the broadcast, Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, told the BBC that there are now plans to encrypt the data. "We have discovered in the period since Sept. 11 how important this sort of real-time intelligence is. Now we are making much better use of this kind of information and it will make sense to encrypt in the future," Perle is quoted saying. The Reuters dispatch quotes a NATO spokesman stressing that this is a U.S. issue. "We are aware of it but it is not new," the spokesman reportedly said and added: "It was a decision made by the United States to treat this imagery as unclassified material and to put it on a commercial satellite…. This is a decision they made and we are content that they are following appropriate levels of security." The dispatch also quotes a EUCOM spokesman stressing that the images did not constitute intelligence. "Raw information such as that video does not mean intelligence. Intelligence means analysis of data that comes from any different sources," the spokesman reportedly stressed. For more than six months, live pictures from manned spy aircraft and drones have been broadcast through a satellite over Brazil, writes The Guardian. The U.S. spy plane broadcasts are not encrypted, meaning that anyone in the region with a normal satellite TV receiver can watch surveillance operations as they happen, it adds, claiming that the satellite feeds have also been connected to the Internet, potentially allowing the missions to be watched from around the globe. The newspaper is illustrated with photographs allegedly showing a spy planes capturing a security alert around Camp Bondsteel, a convoy that visited the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia border, and the control panel of a Hunter spy plane, as seen by the pilot on the ground.

TERRORISM

• The Times quotes intelligence sources saying Wednesday that most of the Al Qaeda suicide bomb team plotting to blow up American and British warships in the Strait of Gibraltar may still be at large. According to the newspaper, the discovery of the plot has sparked alarm that Al Qaeda teams may also try to use high-speed boat bombs on warships in the Suez canal. Western intelligence services are therefore watching the canal closely for signs of terrorist reconnaissance activity. Precautions have also been ordered in Cyprus, which has two British military bases. Officials reportedly believe that the Saudi Arabians arrested in Morocco over the suspected Gibraltar Strait bomb plot may have been only the reconnaissance team, carrying out surveillance of potential targets before the arrival of the bombers themselves. Intelligence services are now trying to discover whether the Gibraltar plot has wider implications, claims the newspaper. The Financial Times writes meanwhile that British warships are on heightened alert following intelligence advice that there is a plausible threat of attacks on shipping by Al Qaeda operatives. The British security service MI5 has been liaising closely with the Ministry of Defense, which is thought to have upgraded security on warships in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. An investigation is continuing into a suspected plot by alleged sympathizers of Al Qaeda to blow up U.S. and British ships operating in the Straits of Gibraltar, says the newspaper.

• Like the rest of the military, EUCOM has made the war on terrorism its top priority writes the Washington Post, adding that senior officials at the headquarters in Stuttgart insist that the command, drawn down to 115,000 troops from a Cold War peak of more than 300,000, has a broad array of combat, intelligence and logistics capabilities geared for the fight. The command’s battle plan, drawn up by a new $5 million, 55-officer planning staff, is focused on preempting attacks. It targets five "ungoverned" regions within its 91-country area of responsibility, says the article, quoting one officer saying: "There are certain ungoverned areas that we suspect could potentially become safe haven areas for various terrorist groups, and we’re watching those." The newspaper stresses that the most dramatic successes in the command’s war on terrorism have come in the Balkans, where U.S. peacekeepers have raided Al Qaeda cells. Counter terrorist task forces were set up in Kosovo and Bosnia to join the military with the FBI, CIA and local law enforcement and intelligence agencies active there, notes the newspaper. Among other things, it recalls that in October, U.S. troops and Bosnian law enforcement officials apprehended a naturalized Bosnian citizen after U.S. intelligence intercepted a cell phone conversation between him and an Al Qaeda operative. The man was among 21 terror suspects fingered and apprehended through the work of a joint task force in Bosnia headed by COMSFOR, Lt. Gen. Sylvester, adds the article.

 MILITARY SPENDING

• According to Reuters, the Stockholm International Peace Research institute (SIPRI) said in the 33^rd edition of its yearbook Thursday that world military spending grew 2 percent last year, according to official figures, but the increase is much bigger when outlays prompted by the Sept. 11 attacks are included. The dispatch quotes SIPRI Director Daniel Rotfeld saying combating terrorism had become a high priority for western governments after Sept. 11. However, he reportedly added, "the trans-Atlantic community is confronted with a disagreement over the main aim: whether to focus on disrupting and defeating the Al Qaeda network or eliminating the roots of terrorism with a broader range of policies." Rotfeld is further quoted noting that one effect of Sept. 11 was that the pace of NATO enlargement had accelerated. Another was that the countries of Central Asia had gained in importance in the field of security policy while Europe, as a relatively more stable region, had become marginalized.

UNITED STATES-DEFENSE

• According to Gen. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, DOD continues to have problems with the interoperability of its numerous command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems, wrote Defense Daily, June 12. "We have to get better at joint warfighting, at integrating our services’ capabilities, and … the C4ISR piece is the key to that," Gen. Myers reportedly told an Armed Forces Computer and Electronics Association luncheon audience in Washignton. According to the article, he called for continued focus on the efforts to integrate land-, sea-, air- and space-based C4ISR systems to provide on-demand knowledge that is useful for command staffs to make real-time decisions and stay ahead of an adversary’s thinking. "The poor interoperability situation also remains between the United States’ forces and allies, a reality that Gen. Myers said could be corrected by rethinking how partner nations invest in their own C4ISR capabilities," added the article, quoting Gen. Myers saying: "This can’t be a U.S.-only (issue)…. I am particularly dismayed that our coalition partners can’t get together on this…. This isn’t a matter of big dollars either. It is a matter of where to put investment." The article noted, however, that allies—even those within the NATO Alliance—have invested very little of their comparatively smaller defense budgets in C4ISR capability.

 FINAL ITEM