What is going on in Germany? An ax attack, a machete attack and a gas attack, all in the past 24 hours.

German Police respond in the Dusseldorf train station. AFP. 

Germany has had three attacks in the past 24 hours, the worst of which was an ax attack at the main Dusseldorf train station. AFP. Nine people were wounded in the attack which ended when the suspect jumped off of a bridge and was captured. German officials claim that the suspect was "mentally ill" and was attempting to commit suicide by cop. The suspect, in accordance with German privacy laws, was identified as Fatmir H. who arrived in Germany for "humanitarian" reasons from Kosovo. 

In a second attack in Dusseldorf, an 80 year old man was attacked with a machete. Metro. Police stress that they don't think that this attack was related to the ax attack. No one has been arrested as of this writing and the suspect is on the run. Students and a nearby school were locked down as the crime was investigated. 

In a third attack, several people were injured in a tear gas attack on a train in Hamburg. News.com.au.

At least four adults and two children were treated for injuries after the attack which occurred at an underground stop for the train. Two "youths" were suspected of the attack but they were able to escape. 

My Comment:

I decided to write this up because if you look at the national media, you might be able to find a few links to the first ax attack. The 2nd machete attack was a lot harder to find, and if I hadn't seen a tweet from RT.com I wouldn't have even known that the third attack, involving the tear gas, had even happened. I understand there is the argument that you don't want to cause panic but three attacks in about 24 hours is a major deal and it should be covered. 

I will also say that I didn't have access to my normal sources because they didn't cover the story. The only reliable source I found for any of the attacks was AFP. I don't know the reputation of Metro or News.com. I think the stories are accurate though.  

It's fairly amazing that nobody was killed in any of these attacks. Getting attacked by an ax is often lethal and a machete is no better. And though the chances of dying in a tear gas attack are extremely low, it could have happened. Though many people were severely wounded, I am thankful that nobody was killed so far. Still, these were very serious incidents. 

Police are saying that they don't suspect terrorism in any of these cases. I am skeptical to say the least. Let's cover the ax attack first. The suspect, Fatmir H. was from Kosovo. Kosovo is 95% Muslim, with only tiny minorities of non Muslims.  While that doesn't prove that there is a religious or political motivation, it does make it more likely. 

German police claim that Fatmir was mentally ill and wanted to commit suicide by cop. This does not rule out a terrorist motivation. Indeed, terrorist groups like ISIS often recruits people with mental health issues. After all, it's hard to get a mentally healthy person to go on a rampage. It is also possible that the attacker was just influenced by ISIS propaganda and wanted to die as a martyr. 

Without a suspect in custody, I won't speculate too much on the motivations in the other two attacks. The machete attack certainly looks like a terrorist inspired attack, but without more information it could just be a random murder attempt. The gas attack could be anything from a legit terror attack to a couple of kids being idiots. 

I don't think there are any links between the attacks. All of them seem like "lone wolf" attacks. If there is any connection at all, I think that there is a possibility that the 2nd and 3rd attacks were inspired by the first. That doesn't seem too likely, but it is possible that someone who was likely planning an attack anyways and moved it up because of the first attack. I'd be shocked if there was anymore of a connection than that.

I do have to say that even if no connection to terrorism is found, the 1st attack shows that there are consequences to Germany's immigration policy. Even if Fatmir was not inspired by terrorism, he was someone who was allowed into the country on humanitarian grounds. That descion had serious consequences for the nine people wounded in this attack...

400 US Marines deployed to Syria to assist in the Raqqa offensive.

A US Special Forces Stryker in Syria. Reuters. 

The United States has deployed 400 US Marines and Army Rangers to assist in the battle against ISIS. Reuters. The Marines will offer artillery support to the Kurdish led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance. The leaders of the offensive believe that Raqqa will be under siege in a period of weeks. The SDF has had success in isolating Raqqa and has cut off the road to Dier Ez Zor, a city partially controlled by the Syrian regime and currently under siege. The support of the SDF has caused some tensions between Turkey and the United States. Turkey considers the SDF to be terrorists but the US deployment of Army Rangers is seen as a move to placate their concerns. 

My Comment:

Looks like our mission creep in Syria has continued under Donald Trump. Though we still have less then 1000 troops in Syria, we have essentially doubled our commitment. Before we only had 500 or so special forces in Syria, now we have some Army Rangers and Marines there as well. Though I don't have a problem with this deployment I have to point out that there really hasn't been any kind of public debate about sending troops to Syria. 

Thankfully, all of those troops will be useful. The Marine artillery unit will be a boon for the SDF forces fighting ISIS. On a one to one basis, ISIS and SDF soldiers are pretty evenly matched. But with artillery support the SDF has a huge advantage. Add in the fact that the SDF has access to US air support and it looks like ISIS is going to be under massive pressure in the Raqqa area. 

I don't believe ISIS has much left in the way of artillery to respond to this deployment. Though ISIS had captured some artillery during their offensives in Syria and Iraq, I doubt that they have any now. They have probably expended what little they have and even if they haven't airstrikes and counter-battery fire will eliminate them quickly. ISIS is probably almost out of everything, including their most advanced captured weapons. 

How much danger are these Marines in? Probably not too much. They are going to be behind the enemy lines and not in a combat role. That doesn't mean there isn't a threat. After all ISIS is pretty good at infiltration and they could sneak a raid into the rear areas. That would probably go pretty bad for them since even a Marine artillery unit is trained in infantry combat and would destroy ISIS. Still, there is a remote possibility of US casualties here. ISIS has a major ideological motivation to kill US troops wherever they can be found so they might try an attack. That attack will almost certainly fail, but there is always a risk. 

The Army Rangers deployment is a bit more unusual. The Reuters article claimed that they were being deployed to Manbij as an effort to placate the Turks. That doesn't make much sense to me. The Turk's problem with Manbij wasn't that there wasn't enough US troops there, but the fact that the Kurds were in the city, at least according to them. 

The military seems fairly confident that advance to Raqqa will go well. I think there is some reason for optimism as well. The deployment of these Marines will be a gamechanger, but I don't think that is the most important factor. 

The fact is that ISIS is under massive pressure right now. The battle of Mosul is obviously a major problem for ISIS and when it falls they will have lost their most important stronghold in Iraq. But the Syrian regime is pounding them as well. ISIS lost Palmyra, which was their one victory in the past few months. Finally, they have been almost completely cut off from the outside world ever since Turkey closed the border. 

There are other long term issues with this deployment as well. The Syrian government did not authorize it and though I doubt they have too much of a problem with US forces killing ISIS fighters, it is an insult to their sovereignty. The United States, along with Turkey, have violated Syrian boarders. This probably isn't an issue right now, but it may be after ISIS is defeated... 

ISIS takes responsibility for a major attack on an Afghanistan military hospital that killed at least 30 people.

Wounded patients are transferred to a different hospital. BBC/EPA.

ISIS has taken responsibility for a major attack on an military hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing at least 30 people and wounding 50 more. BBC. ISIS fighters, adapting a tactic commonly used by the Taliban, detonated explosives at the main gate and then poured through the hole. They then killed doctors and patients alike with guns and grenades. The attackers were disguised as doctors and were eventually killed by Afghan commandos. The Afghan government has condemned the attack, noting the fact that hospitals are not military targets and are considered safe zones almost everywhere. Though ISIS hasn't had much luck expanding from their mountain bases in the east of the country, they have attempted several headline grabbing attacks in Afghanistan. 

My Comment:

Another disgusting terrorist attack by ISIS. Targeting a hospital is low even for them, even though this isn't the first time a terror attack targeted a hospital in the region. Though hospitals are extremely vulnerable to attacks, even though this one at least had a gate, attacking a place filed with sick and wounded people is pretty horrible. Many of the people targeted in this attack were too weak to even run away. And since this was a military hospital most of the people there were men who were already wounded in battle.  

I do have to say that the tactics ISIS used here were fairly effective. Adapting a Taliban tactic, namely blowing up a gate and then storming through with guns and grenades, worked very well for them. The bombing would also distract any possible defenders and might even kill some people on its own. Once they were in the hospital, the attackers were disguised as doctors. This would make any response more difficult as any attackers would have to worry about shooting the wrong people. Though carrying a rifle and grenades kinda breaks the disguise, it still is a smart move. 

Afghanistan has fallen to the wayside in terms of media coverage. We almost never hear anything from the country except when a terror attack like this happens. It didn't come up much during the presidential campaign and even after the election of Trump, the war there does not get anywhere near the attention the wars in Syria and Iraq have gotten. 

This is a problem because this attack demonstrates how dangerous the situation in Afghanistan is. Ignoring the fact that the Taliban is taking quite a bit of territory, ISIS is taking advantage of the instability in the country to gain territory. Right now they only have a sliver in the eastern mountains and a few other outposts in the country. Nothing like the vast swaths of territory they control in Iraq, Afghanistan and, until recently, Libya, but still, the situation is bad. 

I don't think that Afghanistan will make a good backup base for ISIS after Iraq and/or Syria finally fall. Though ISIS does control territory in the country, it's fairly remote. Afghanistan is an isolated country and is landlocked. It's extremely hard to get to via land or sea and even through the air there are few chances for ISIS fighters to get into the country. I just don't see many ISIS fighters making the very long and dangerous journey from Iraq and Syria to Afghanistan. That being said, even if ISIS is defeated in Iraq and Syria, they will still have followers in Afghanistan to carry out the cause. 

I am surprised that ISIS hasn't attacked a hospital in the Western world. Hospitals are extremely vulnerable in the western world and only rarely have people armed to fight back there. Security is often unarmed or armed with only less then lethal weapons. Plus there are a lot of people there that can't even flee. It's about as good of a target that ISIS can ask for and I wouldn't be surprised if they attempt it... 

Wikileaks has released Vault7 and it's all about the CIA.

As you are probably aware of, Wikileaks has released it's Vault7 Year Zero trove of CIA documents. The press release for the release can be found here. This particular release, the first is a series that Wikileaks is hyping as the largest intelligence release ever, concerns the CIA hacking tools and supposedly it covers everything they have. Here's a few of the most disturbing revelations from the leak:

1. The CIA has lost control of many of their hacking tools. According to Wikileaks this trove of hacking tools, viruses and exploits were being freely passed around among former CIA employees and contractors. That's how Wikileaks got control of these leaks in the first place.

This is, quite frankly, extremely bad. Given the scale and power of these hacking tools it means that every scary thing that the CIA is capable of could be out in the wilderness under the control of rogue actors or, even worse, foreign governments. I am guessing if one of the contractors saw how important these tools are and provided them to Wikileaks, another could have realized how important they were and sold them to the highest bidder. This is a massive problem and should be a major concern for the Trump White House. Whoever allowed these tools to circulate beyond the CIA, regardless of whatever else happens due to this leak, needs to be punished, not because it got to Wikileaks, but because it may have spread way beyond that.

Keep this in mind as you read the rest of this post or other revelations from the Vault7 series. Every single tool in this toolkit has been allowed out of control of the CIA. Other state actors could indeed have control of these tools and even rouge actors like ISIS and other terror groups could have them now too...

2. Your mobile devices and even your TV are probably compromised and the CIA can easily spy on them if they choose to do so. Both Android and iPhone have several "Zero Day" exploits that the CIA can easily exploit. By doing so they can bypass any encryption on various "safe" apps and programs on these phones. They never get a chance to become encrypted since they compromised. Just assume that if you are an enemy of the CIA, that no mobile device is safe.

Even more disturbing on a personal level for me is that the CIA developed a hack on Samsung Smart TV's. The "Weeping Angel" exploit allows Samsung TV's to operate in a "Fake Off" mode where it appears that the TV is off but is in fact recording everything it can hear with it's internal microphone. This one strikes pretty close to home for me since I own a Samsung Smart TV and I do, in fact, have it running in the background as I write this...

3. The CIA has developed the ability to interfere with vehicles, specifically cars. They can use malware to shut down any car with a computer system. Even worse they could use the same malware to cause a fatal accident, essentially making it an undetectable assassination tool. Finally, now that many cars are connected to the internet, the CIA can upload this malware remotely. Before they had to physically work with the car to infect it with the malware.

The fact that the CIA can do this calls into question several recent deaths, the most notable of which was the death of Buzzfeed and Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings. Hastings made several very powerful enemies with his stories on the NSA and General Stanley McChrystal. The CIA was on his list for investigative reporting and some believe that his death was caused by hacking his car.

I personally don't believe that but I think the theory is a lot more credible then it was just a couple of days ago. I think that Hastings was probably driven to suicide or a reckless death to actual harassment by the CIA and other federal agencies but I don't think there was any direct action against him. But the case for assassination, always one of the more credible conspiracy theories, has not become much stronger.

I also have to point out an obvious extension of this program. It's not just cars that are vulnerable to this kind of malware. Airplanes as well could be vulnerable. Though no current airplanes are connected to the internet, it wouldn't be that hard to manually upload malware to interfere with the operation of a plane...

All of this means that we should probably start to investigate every single suspicious car or plane crash for possible CIA or rouge actor involvement. Though I don't know if these viruses would be detectable after a crash, it should still be looked for. And I really think we need to reconsider connecting things that can kill us to the internet... I know for me that I am glad that my 2010 car isn't connected to the internet. If anyone wants to kill me with malware they at least have to work at getting physical access to my car...

4. The CIA developed spoofing software that can fake the digital signature of attacks. These fingerprints can be used to deflect blame on CIA attacks and could be used as a "false flag" attack. The CIA also holds a massive amount of viruses and other programs taken from other sources, like the Russian Federation...

Obviously this throws the entire "Russian hacking" election narrative into doubt. If the CIA is capable of spoofing an attack to make it look like the Russians did something then how do we know they didn't do that here? The evidence that the Russians were the ones that broke into the DNC and John Podesta's account could have been faked out of whole cloth. And since the CIA tools have leaked out into the wilderness it could have been anyone!

All that being said, there is more. For one, this is just release one in a larger project. Wikileaks is saying that this is the largest intelligence release in history and given that history includes the Podesta e-mails, the DNC hack and the Snowden revaluations that is an extraordinary statement. This release alone qualifies for Snowden 2.0. While Snowden aired out the NSA's dirty laundry, it appears that this leaker has done the same thing to the CIA.

Secondly, it is still possible that people will find more interesting things in this release. I personally wasn't able to dig into these files myself but others are doing so and may find something else crazy. I have already seen that the CIA apparently was very interested in internet memes and may have been trying to exploit them, which would be very interesting if it wasn't so sad. Other revelations may come soon.

I am guessing that this leak will be the only one covering the hacking tools of the CIA. Those of you disappointed somehow in this leak should keep heart knowing that more is coming. I won't speculate as to what those further leaks will be, but keep paying attention, they will probably be shocking.

Vault 7 Wikileaks discovery...

Wikileaks has a new tweet up about their very mysterious Vault 7 release. I've posted about Vault 7 before, but until now there haven't been many hints as to what it is. That is changing and I believe I have discovered a very important clue.

ENCRYPTED RELEASE
Use a 'torrent' downloader on: https://t.co/gpBxJAoYD5
And '7z' to decrypt.
Passphrase will be made public at Tue 9am ET. pic.twitter.com/MxZQtoaCMK

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 7, 2017

I noticed something with the image above. It just looks like a normal black background, but if you look close there is something else there...

 I saved the image and edited with GIMP. By messing around with the levels I was able to find this:

Still confused? Well it turns out that this is picture of a sculpture by Jim Sanborn called Lingua. Lingua is found in the Walter E. Washington convention center in Washington DC. That convention center is fairly famous for hosting political events, including several 6 of Barack Obama's inauguration balls.

Even more interesting is that Jim Sanborn has another sculpture called Kryptos that is found at CIA headquarters in Langley Virginia. It is famous for being encrypted with four different sections. Three of them have been decoded while the fourth has not been.

So what does this all mean? I have no idea. The speculation about Vault 7 has included everything from the Hillary Clinton investigation, to the 9/11 attacks, specifically World Trade Center #7, or, most likely, the 7th floor group in the state department, also known as the shadow government. It could be any of those possibilities or it could be something completely different.

My guess is that we can safely assume that whatever Wikileaks has here it is probably related to Washington DC. I also think it is fairly certain that either the State Department or the CIA is going to be exposed shortly. What those leaks are and how much damage they will do is the real question and given the reference to Year Zero, I am kind of nervous.

The Year Zero reference is fairly cryptic and more than a little terrifying if you know the history of the term. It is possibly a reference to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. After they took power they reset the calendar to year zero as a symbol as how the entire history of Cambodia was over due to the communist revolution. Many, many deaths followed...

It could also be a reference to the Nine Inch Nails concept album of the same name. The album had a fairly massive plot and a deep alternate reality game that took place in a universe like ours. Though the villains in the album were right wing fanatics, the actual plot is fairly close to the real life Barack Obama administration... Still, that's a fairly obscure reference for Wikileaks to make.

Either way though, the reference to Year Zero implies nothing good at all. Is Wikileaks implying that whatever Vault 7 is, it is as important as resetting the calender's? Whatever is happening, I think it is important and could be a game changer. For now, we will have to wait, the password will be released tomorrow at 9:00 am Eastern time. I, for one, am eagerly awaiting it...