SOF

CIA Tipped Off Russia About St. Petersburg Bomb Plot

The fight against global terrorism, specifically the Islamist State can make for some strange bedfellows and in this case the United States and Russia. The CIA learned of an IS terrorist attack in St. Petersburg, Russia and tipped off their Russian FSB counterparts who thwarted the planned terror attack on a cathedral.

Russian President Vladimir Putin personally thanked President Trump for the shared intelligence and expressed gratitude for passing along the information. The sharing of intelligence is noteworthy during this time of the Cold War heating up in many places around the globe. “The enemy of my enemy –can sometimes be– my friend.

Mr Putin asked Mr Trump to thank Mike Pompeo, director of the CIA. He promised that Russia would reciprocate if it acquired information about attacks being prepared in the US. The White House said that Mr Trump had passed on his thanks to Mr Pompeo.
Five men have been arrested over the alleged plot. Shamil Omargadzhiyev and Aliskhan Esmurziyev, both Russian, and Firuz Kalavurov, from Tajikistan, were detained by police in St Petersburg on Thursday and remanded in custody yesterday. They denied the allegations and claimed that weapons were planted on them. Yevgeny Yefimov and Anton Kobets were held earlier.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) said that the men were a cell of Islamic State who had received orders from abroad via the Telegram messaging app. It said that one of the men intended to blow himself up in Kazansky Cathedral on Saturday. Other explosives were to be detonated in busy public places.

Video of the arrest of some of the suspects was carried on Russian television. Firearms, explosives-making material, and terrorist literature were found during the raids to arrest the suspects.

To read the entire article from The Times UK, click here:

Photo courtesy AP

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 4, Day 3

We’ll continue to prep for the UBRR. Tuesday is Leg Day at the gym. We’ll begin with pull-ups, the hit the legs with squats, the sled push, and some other exercises. We’ll finish things off with a three-mile run at a good pace, faster than the standard.

Focus on strict form during the squats, you don’t want to hurt your back or knees in doing these. I like to super-set the Sit-ups and crunches but you can do them as you please. Stretch well and make sure you stay hydrated.

Training:

3 x Pullups 10 reps

3 x Front Squat 20-15-12 reps (lighter weight)

3 x Goblet Squats 20-15-12 reps (lighter dumbbell)

3 x 10 Sled push heavier weight or Fireman’s carry

3 x 10 reps Dumbbell Lunges

3 x 20 Sit-ups

3 x 25 Crunches

3-mile run (24-minutes maximum)

Stretch well after completion

Massacre of American Soldiers at Malmedy December 17,1944

During the opening days of the Germans’ Ardennes Offensive late in 1944, elements of the 1st SS Panzer Division [Leibstandarte] committed a series of grisly atrocities against American prisoners of war [POWs] around the Belgian town of Malmedy. These actions by Kampfgruppe Peiper, led by SS Sturmbannführer Joachim Peiper led to a war crimes trial in Dachau in 1946.

Background: Nazi Germany was on the verge of collapse in late 1944, the Russian Army in the east was steadily pushing them back toward Germany and bleeding an incredible amount of casualties every day. In the west, the Allies had successfully come ashore at Normandy and once they had achieved a breakthrough in the hedgerow country, raced across France. They had penetrated the frontiers of the German border in a few places while their bombers were devastating German war industry and their cities.

Hitler developed a grandiose plan where he was going to withdraw a large part of his Panzer Army from the Russian Front and try to take advantage of the bad winter weather, which would ground Allied aircraft and punch a hole in the thinly defended American lines in the Ardennes forest. He wanted to split the Allies in two and drive to Antwerp. His generals had no delusions about making it to Antwerp. But they thought it could push the Allies back to the Meuse River it would buy them time while delaying the war.
Peiper’s attack was to be the vanguard of the left wing of the Sixth SS Panzer Army. His orders relayed to him by General Sepp Dietrich and from Hitler, himself stated that the Russian Front rules of engagement would be in effect. No quarter to be given, no prisoners taken and the Belgian citizens were to be shown no quarter either. Hitler wanted to shock and frighten the American army. It would have the opposite effect. Once the infantry poked a hole in the American lines, Peiper’s Kampfgruppe spearhead was to race his column of armored and motorized infantry thru the crossroads at Stavelot and Trois Pointes and seize the important bridge over the Meuse at Huy. The timetable for this was 48 hours maximum. This would prove to be too ambitious and the Germans would be behind their schedule almost immediately.

The Germans Attack: At 0530 on December 16, the Germans began their attack along the front. Artillery pounded US positions from between 20-90 minutes. The German Volksgrenadiers who were to punch a hole in the green American 99th Infantry Division were delayed in breaking thru. The untested and heavily outnumbered Americans delayed the German advance for four hours. The result was a huge traffic jam behind the lines for Peiper’s armored force. He didn’t break thru until after dark, far behind his timetable, but drove his men all thru the night, not stopping. He initially lost five of his tanks when they rolled over an old German minefield

Shooting of prisoners at Honsfeld and Büllingen: Peiper’s column raced as quickly as they could all night on the roads in the American rear. At dawn on the 17th, his troops surprised and took the town of Honsfeld, capturing many vehicles and anti-tank guns. They then shot down 17 unarmed Americans, the first of the atrocities committed by these hardened German troops who were accustomed to the bitter no-quarter-given battles on the Eastern Front.

Peiper’s column was already in need of fuel. He learned of an American fuel depot at Büllingen which wasn’t in his sector but the Hitler Youth [Jugend] Division’s sector. Peiper swung two miles off course and quickly captured the fuel depot and capturing 50 Americans. His men forced the Americans to fuel his vehicles and then shot them down in cold-blood, murdering them and leaving them before swinging back on his route and pushing west.

As Peiper’s men pushed west, they just missed running headlong into a column of Combat Command [Brigade] of the 7th Armored Division heading for St. Vith. Had they met a massive tank battle would have taken place, instead, the Americans passed by unaware of the armored column in their rear. Following the American tanks was a column of 125 men attached to the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion.

Malmedy Massacre: The meeting between the two columns was strictly by chance, the Americans were in unarmored trucks and the Germans disabled the first and last vehicles forcing the men to surrender. They were herded into a small field surrounded by crossroads with other POWs from earlier in the day.

Later reports had about 120 prisoners in the field. As follow-on German columns were approaching on all sides in armored vehicles, the Germans opened fire on the American prisoners. They machine-gunned them in the field. There was no escape, no one was able to run. Unlike in some films that showed Americans running into the woods, that didn’t happen.

After the troops were machine-gunned, SS troops walked thru the field and were shooting any soldier that showed signs of life and mocked Americans who cried out for their mother or God as they applied a coup de grace. 43 men survived by feigning death under the bodies of other soldiers. That was their only chance.

After the Germans moved off, the survivors in ones and twos began making their way back to the American lines. By late that afternoon, the American high command was learning of the Germans executing prisoners of war and the word quickly filtered down to the troops in the line. There would be no more surrendering. In fact, one unit posted orders that no German paratrooper or SS men were to be taken prisoner.

Reaction and Aftermath: The American army interviewed all of the survivors and their stories all matched, they knew that the Germans were conducting atrocities and were looking to gather evidence for a war crimes trial. For the average foot soldier, the feeling was payback. And that is just what they did.

On January 1, 1945, the Americans machine gunned about 30 German POWs outside of the small town of Chenogne, Belgium. It was quickly covered up and no soldier or officer was ever called to answer for their crimes.

Unfortunately, the bodies at Malmedy weren’t recovered until January 14, 1945, when the Americans finally took back the Baugnez crossroads where the massacre took place. An inspection of the dead showed many died from a pistol to wound to the head with powder burns showing execution by the SS.

Peiper’s men were accused of killing other prisoners in several other Belgian towns and the killing of 100 civilians in Stavelot.

An interesting side note to the events was the capture of an American officer, a Major Harold D. McCown of the 119th Infantry Regiment. He was captured in the fighting around Gleize. He was brought before Peiper and knowing about Malmedy, he asked about the safety of his men and himself. Peiper, according to McCown that neither he nor his men were at any risk and that he [Peiper] was not accustomed to killing his prisoners. McCown also testified that neither he nor his men were threatened in any way. McCown would later testify at Peiper’s war crime trial in 1946.

During the trial at Dachau in 1946, Peiper, his commander Sepp Dietrich and 70 subordinates were tried and sentenced for crimes against humanity. There were 43 death sentences, 22 life sentences, and several smaller sentences. No one was ever executed. All of the sentences were commuted and the last to leave prison was Peiper himself in 1956.

After the war, he moved to France where he lived quietly before being murdered by French communists in 1976. Ironically, he had just begun work on a book about Malmedy.

An excellent account of the Malmedy Massacre is the book “Fatal Crossroads” by Danny S. Parker. It can be ordered here:

Photos: US Archives

Military Funding Bill Allows Public to Buy Historic Firearms

President Trump has signed into law H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (NDAA). There is a provision included in the law that would require surplus military M1911/M1911A1 pistols to be made available for sale to the American public. Currently, there are 100,000 M1911s that would be affected by this law.

President Obama in 2015 authorized but did not require, the Secretary of Defense to transfer up to 10,000 surplus 1911s per year to the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) for sale to the public. No transfers were made during his administration but that is expected to change.

The language in the 2018 NDAA effectively establishes a mandatory pilot program under which at least 8,000 – and as many as 10,000 –1911s would be transferred to the CMP for public sale in 2018. The Secretary of Defense must then report to Congress on the outcome of the program. Thereafter, the Secretary would be authorized to continue transferring up to 10,000 surplus 1911s a year to the CMP for further such sales.
Despite the typical heated (and inaccurate) rhetoric from gun control advocates, the CMP pistols sales will utilize a variety of safeguards that exceed even the normal procedures the organization has used for years to distribute surplus military M1 Garands, M1 carbines, and .22 rimfire trainers.
For example, the pistol sales may only occur through a federally licensed firearms dealer (FFL) in the purchaser’s state of residence, who of course will be obligated to obey all state and local laws of the point of sale. Sales records allowing for the tracing of the firearms – should they later be found at a crime scene – will be kept both by the CMP and by the transferring FFL. Furthermore, the buyer must receive the pistol from the FFL in a face-to-face transaction at the FFL’s business premises. Pistols will not be provided directly to the buyers by the CMP.

There will be two background checks made for each transaction. one by the CMP prior to shipping the pistol to the specified FFL and another by the FFL before releasing the pistol to the customer at the FFL’s place of business. No timeline for release or pricing information is currently available.

To read the entire article from NRA click here:

Photo courtesy NRA

British Worry Russian Submarines Could Cut Internet To NATO

There is a new worry among Western Europe’s NATO Allies according to Chief Marshall Stuart Peach, head of Britain’s military that the Russians could try to sever global underwater communications cables, potentially triggering catastrophic repercussions for the economy and way of life in the West.

According to military and government analysts, most of the global internet and telephone traffic that Western governments and economies rely so heavily on are carried by undersea cables that run on the seabeds of the world.

NATO has prioritized missions to protect these undersea lines of communication and is working “to match and understand Russian fleet modernization,” Chief Marshall Stuart Peach told the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a defense think tank in London.
“Your emails, what you order on Amazon, your phone calls, online banking, it’s all done through undersea cables not through satellites,” said Peter Roberts, director of military sciences at RUSI.
Roberts warned that “the threat from Russia is very real” and that Russian tapping of submarine cables was already happening.
“In the school of Russian warfare at sea it’s not about aircraft carriers, it’s about the undersea domain,” said Roberts.
There have been reports of Russia damaging communication lines in the North Atlantic as early as the 1970s, according to Igor Sutyagin, an expert in U.S.-Russian affairs at RUSI, who spent more than a decade in Russian prison on charges of espionage for the United States.

The Russian Embassy in London dismissed the claims as sensationalist, however, a look at how they used electronic warfare when they occupied the Crimea is a textbook operation on what European leaders are fearing. They cut off the main cable connection from the Crimea to the outside world, and any non-Russian news or information was blocked from reaching civilians.

Russia annexed the Crimea during the upheaval in Ukraine and many experts are looking at how they handled the Crimea as the playbook for how they’d try to replicate the same tactics in a future conflict.

To read the entire article from NBC News, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 4, Day 2

We’ll start our Monday doing a mini-UBRR with Pushups, sit-ups, and crunches, with V-ups and dips. Then we’ll focus on some speed work with the shuttle runs rather than a longer duration.

Have you been breaking in a second pair of boots for the ruck march from yesterday? It needs to be done and will be giving you fewer problems in the long run. We’ll address that as well in some upcoming posts.

Training:

More preparation for the UBRR

2 x 1-minute Pushups

2 x 1-minute Sit-ups

2 x 1-minute, Crunches

2 x 1-minute, V-ups

2 x Dips as many as possible to muscle failure

10 x 40-meter shuttle run

Stretch well after completion

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 4, Day 1

Best way to start our Sunday before the sun comes up is our Sunday Ruck March. Grab your training partner (in my case a bulldog) and hit the trail. A little warm-up and a good long rucksack march. As always be sure to stay hydrated during the ruck march. It should be a habit that will carry over to Selection and training afterward.

Becoming dehydrated during a long training event such as a ruck march or long-range movement is a guarantee for bigger problems and failure, keep sipping on the water during the march.

Training:

Warm up

2 x 20 Pushups

2 x 20 Sit-ups

8-mile rucksack march (2 hours/120 minutes maximum) over varied terrain. Try to keep your pace better than the standard (15 minutes per mile). And mark your times in your workout log book.

Stretch well after completion

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 3, Day 7

Back in the gym this morning for some shoulders and back training before heading out for a run. We’ll break up the routine next week with some more speed interval running, that will help to build up your short area quickness and speed. And we’ll do some swimming which is also very important.

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, behind the neck (go as heavy as possible)

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, front

3 x 10 Dumbbell Side Raises

3 x 10 Seated Bent-Over Delt Raise

3 x 10 Dumbbell Shoulder Press

3 x 10 Arnold Dumbbell Press

4-mile run

Stretch well after completion

Getting Selected at SFAS: The Basics – Knowing Your Pace Count

With some new Selection courses starting in the cooler/colder weather, it is a good time to revisit some of the basics that the candidates will need to pass. The Big Three in regard to questions we get here which pertains to Selection concern themselves with physical training, rucking and Land Navigation. And we do get lots of questions about Land Navigation and specifically the Star Course out in Hoffman. We’ll address those in just a moment.

But before we get to that, there are certain tips, such as the Physical Training program which will help you attain the level of physical fitness that you’ll need to not just pass the course but to excel… in our humble opinion. We take it week by week and break it down into a daily workout that should have you in great shape to handle the rigors of the course. I don’t claim to know it all, far from it. But after a decade+ in Special Forces and time as a cadre member in Selection, does have its advantages.

So, I know that many of the candidates who are going to attend Selection have heard horror stories about the Land Navigation course and Hoffman. And, there is a lot of truth in parts of the “legend of the SF Land Nav Course.” Most of the students who fail at either SFAS or the SFQC have done so because they failed the land navigation course. There is no mistaking it. The course is tough, it is the toughest individual land navigation course you’ll find in the US military.

But I’m here to tell you it isn’t anything that thousands of Special Forces soldiers haven’t passed before you. It just requires you to be prepared, keep a cool head and know your basics. So, we’ll put the cart before the horse a bit here. We’ll touch on some map reading basics soon but let’s take a look at one of the most basic of skills in moving during navigation, and that is your pace count.

Pace Count: Knowing your pace is very important because there are going to be times, that you’ll need to know exactly how far you’ve traveled, even if you can read a map like a pro or in the case of Camp Mackall, where the terrain features are indistinct. And the terrain will dictate that in many cases.

First set up a 100-meter course on flat terrain. Walk it three times and every time your left foot hits the ground, count it. Take the total number of steps you’ve walked and divide by three. That is your baseline pace count. If you’re on a track or a football field, take a spool of 550 cord and mark out 100 meters. You’ll thank me later.

Now wait until dark and walk the flat course again, three times. Your pace count will probably increase in the dark, keep a notation in your notebook that should always be in your pocket. Mark down what your pace count is for daylight on flat terrain and your night pace count.

Now take your 550 cord out in the woods and try to find some rougher, hilly terrain. Lay out the 550 cord and walk the course again three times in the day and three times in the dark. Did your pace count increase with the difference in terrain? It should have.

Now put a rucksack on and repeat the steps in both the flat terrain and the rough hilly terrain, day and night. Your pace count should increase dramatically with a heavy rucksack on especially once you start hitting hills and thicker vegetation.

Remember, if you plan to use your Ranger beads every time you travel 100 meters. Slide the lowest bead to the bottom. Most of them come with nine beads. After you slide nine down, the next 100 meters brings you to a klick and you can push them all back up to the top. I recommend using them or making your own out of 550 cord, it is a valuable tool and comes in handy so that you don’t have to remember exactly how far you have to go and how far you’ve gone.

A couple of things to remember if the weather turns to shit, and it will, the rain, snow or sleet will cause you to take shorter steps and increase your pace count. Exhaustion will do the same thing. As you get tired during the course or during a field training exercise, your level of exhaustion will increase your pace count even if moving during daylight hours in open terrain.

In time, you’ll become a seasoned pro at this and will know just by the conditions that you are dealing with what your pace count will be. And it will change over time. My pace with just web gear on flat terrain was 62 back in the days of Phase 1 at Camp Mackall.

But with a rucksack and a heavy load, it went up to 73. But I noticed after I had been in Group for a while and your rucksack becomes a part of your body, my pace counted lessened to between 68-69 depending on conditions. You’ll find that you will have similar results.

Another tip on pace counts. If you plot your point and you have 4 kilometers (klicks) between points, don’t try to keep a pace for the entire distance. Pick out a terrain feature or road intersection as an attack point. Use deliberate offset (More on that later) to find it. Keep your pace count to that attack point and make a notation with a grease pencil on your map case. If any of your fellow students or training partners have been in either the Ranger Regiment or an Airborne or Light Infantry unit, they’ll probably have some experience doing this.

It is a great way to check your pace and see how close you come out. By the time you finish SFAS and the SFQC, you’ll find you pace counts and distances are coming really close to the distances when you plot them on your maps.

Remember, keeping a pace count is just an added tool at your disposal. Knowing how to read a map and the surrounding terrain features is an easy way to quickly, and confidently find your way anywhere. And… as the old saying goes, if you can navigate in Camp Mackall, you’ll be able to navigate anywhere.

But failure to keep a pace count can really hurt you if become disoriented, especially in the dark. It is a valuable tool that every successful SFAS candidate should use while you’re out on the course.

So, when navigating, keeping an accurate pace count is not only a helpful aid but essential. Don’t be “Ned the Navigator” and wind up miles off the course because he wasn’t paying attention. That will get you a red face when the cadre has to search for you and usually ends up with the candidate doing the long walk to the trucks back to Ft. Bragg. The last thing you want to see is your rucksack in the hallway.

We’ll get to some more Land Navigation tips and some important Map Reading do’s and don’ts in some of our upcoming articles soon. Until then, if you have any questions, feel free to email me and I’ll be happy to answer them. Either privately or in a post such as this (without giving up names).

Keep Grinding, No Days Off… DOL

Photo courtesy of DOD

Coalition-Backed Syrian Troops Kill 20 ISIS Fighters at Tanf

U.S.-led coalition and its Syrian partners killed more than 20 Islamic State fighters and captured 17 others Wednesday in fighting outside U.S. base at Tanf, the coalition said Thursday.

It was the second combat action around that key US base and coalition officials took issue with what they described as ISIS has been able to move freely through Syrian regime-controlled territory with a Russian military presence.

“Despite the presence of Russian-backed, pro-Syrian regime forces in the area, Daesh still finds ways to move freely through regime lines and pose a threat,” coalition director of operations Brig. Gen. Jonathan Braga said in the statement, using an alternate name for ISIS. “We shall continue to work by, with and through our partner forces to deny Daesh the ability to regroup and reorganize.”
Given its location, the base has been seen as an important outpost as the United States, Russia and Iran jockey for influence in the region. Iran in particular is said to want to control a route running from Iran to the Mediterranean that would runs through that area.
Reports citing unnamed U.S. officials said the convoy had about 10 vehicles and got within 55 kilometers of the base. The United States has established a so-called deconfliction zone of 55 kilometers around al Tanf.
“Though Daesh has lost over 98 percent of the land it once controlled, this exchange is evidence that Daesh still poses a threat to the people of Syria,” the statement. “The coalition remains committed to standing with our partner forces to see a lasting defeat of Daesh.”

During the summer, the area around Tanf has been the scene of several operations. US airstrikes hit Syrian-backed militias inside the 55-kilometer zone around the US base and coalition troops shot down an Iranian drone.

To read the entire article from The Hill, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia