• Predator and Reaper drones 'hit by mysterious keylogger virus'
  
• Infection thought have spread via crews' removable hard drives
  
• Fears tracking logs may be on public internet and available to terrorists
  
• Drone use has been suspended while security specialists investigate
  
  
• Experts at Nevada base believe virus is most likely accidental malware
  
• Drones have killed more than 2,000 people since Obama was elected
  

The U.S. drones used to kill Anwar al-Awlaki and other Al Qaeda chiefs have been infected by a computer virus that logs their every move, it has been claimed. The unmanned Predator, which killed the American attack planner, and the Reaper crafts are still able to complete missions over Yemen, Afghanistan and other warzones. But each keystroke made by pilots, who operate the drones remotely from a base in Nevada, is said to be recorded by the virus and experts are struggling to remove it.

Predator: The craft, which killed Al Qaeda boss Anwar al-Awlak, is said to be one of two drones infected by the virus

Specialists think the infection has hit both classified and unclassified machines at the base.

This means that some of the data captured by the virus may have been transmitted to the internet and could be available to terrorists online.

None of the remote cockpits, in which pilots steer the craft using joysticks and monitors, are supposed to be connected to the public internet.

But the so-called ‘air gaps’ between classified and public networks have reportedly been bridged in the past through the use of discs and removable drives.

Predator and Reaper crews use removable hard drives to load map updates and transport mission videos from one computer to another.

The virus is believed to have spread through these removable drives. Drone units at other Air Force bases worldwide have now been ordered to stop their use.

In the meantime, technicians at Creech Air Force Base are trying to get the virus off the Ground Control System machines.

‘We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,’ says a source familiar with the network infection told technology website Wired.com.

‘We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.’

However, security specialists at Creech are not sure whether the so-called ‘keylogger’ virus were introduced intentionally or by accident.

They believe it may be a common piece of malware that just happened to make its way into these sensitive networks. 

The situation is serious enough that senior officers at Creech are being briefed daily on the virus.

In recent years the U.S. military has increasingly relied on drones, which were first used in the mid-1990s in the former Yugoslavia.

Although, each drone cost between $10million for a Predator and $30million for a Reaper, they are highly valued because they can search, spy and destroy without risking the lives of U.S. servicemen.

Their use, particularly in remote, mountainous areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen has risen amid the increasingly alarming death toll of airmen and soldiers.

Massive: The Reaper, another drone allegedly infected has a wingspan of 84ft and costs $30million

 

Last month, a Predator drone scored its most high-profile victim yet, killing Awlaki and other Al Qaeda operatives in a convoy in Yemen with Hellfire missiles.

Given the controversial nature of missions in sovereign countries such as the Gulf state and Pakistan, which have not approved U.S. operations, drones are seen as the best way of carrying out such missions.

Wiped out: Anwar al -Awlaki is the most high-profile target killed by a drone

Since President Barack Obama assumed office, a fleet of approximately 30 CIA-directed drones have hit targets in Pakistan more than 230 times.

They are understood to have killed more than 2,000 suspected terrorists and civilians.

More than 150 additional craft, under U.S. Air Force control, watch over the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

American military drones struck 92 in Libya between mid-April and late August, when dictator Moammar Gaddafi was ousted from power after 42 years.

But despite their widespread use, the drone systems are known to have security flaws.

Notably, hours of footage was captured by Iraqi insurgents in 2009 using a $26 piece of software.

The Air Force declined to comment directly on the virus, when .

‘We generally do not discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats, or responses to our computer networks, since that helps people looking to exploit or attack our systems to refine their approach,’ Lieutenant Coloenel Tadd Sholtis, a spokesman for Air Combat Command, told Wired.

‘We invest a lot in protecting and monitoring our systems to counter threats and ensure security, which includes a comprehensive response to viruses, worms, and other malware we discover.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046660/U-S-drones-killed-American-Al-Qaeda-boss-infected-virus-amid-fears-terrorists-logging-move.html#ixzz1aN0TvOzW

His gruesome strategy to snuff out the lives of the youth likely to lead the Labour Party, known for it’s relatively more liberal and cosmopolitan outlook, shows the height of a new morbid fanaticism

The national memorial service for the dead and return of the survivors and bereaved families to Utøya Island, the site of the barbaric blitz by Breivik, once again ignited the shock that rocked not only Norway but every devotee of democracy, peace and sanctity of life anywhere on earth. This sudden spurt of violence on a soil that systematically struggled to swamp violence in the remotest parts of the globe like Cypress, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, Columbia and the Philippines also posed new challenges to reigning western values and ideals for adherence to a dignified debate, dialogue and persuasion for the propagation of various views and policies. Norway is also known for its remarkable record for tolerance, human equality, spread of peace and elimination of conflict, violence, disease and deprivation from various parts of the developing world. The passion for peace in Norway seemed to captivate even Alfred Nobel, acclaimed for his research, discovery and commercialisation of explosives as he initiated whopping world recognition for excellence and utility of research and innovation emanating from any corner of the world. Norway similarly pursued peace in the post Second World War period by being a pioneering member of the United Nations; its eminent lawyer and labour leader Trygve Lie is honoured as its founding secretary general and is still the largest contributor to its coffers. Norway’s care and concern for its population similarly forms a coveted model of social security, universal health assurance, stimuli for higher education and basic necessities like food, shelter and adequate income. Its culture has also tended to be rather equalitarian as even its premiers are known to roam the streets, rushing for their chores like their compatriots, often cheered and greeted by them on a first name basis.

The Nordic countries, unfortunately, have often had to pay the price for their egalitarianism. The chilling July carnage was unprecedented and rattled the centuries old struggle for the secularism and plurality waged for by western civilisation. Norway, like many other countries in the region, also endured bouts of frenzied religious bigotry, intolerance and fierce fighting for the dominance of Catholicism and its reformed denominations during the Middle Ages. The Second World War plunged it into a weird cataclysm of the racial superiority and discrimination perpetrated by the Nazi Reich. The elimination of Jews and gypsies to attain a manifest glory of the perceived original European breed was turned into a morbid drive for their genocide. Norway, true to its First World War tradition, tried to remain neutral yet the lure of its strategic routes and mineral resources was too overpowering for the adversaries anxious for their exclusive exploitation. So, Norway, despite some sporadic efforts by France and Britain, was soon occupied by Hitler and, in April 1940, a surrogate Nazi government was installed forcing out the rightful government. The ensuing Norwegian struggle and resistance against the occupation has now been reincarnated in its Museum of Resistance and constitutes a vivid reminder to countries like Pakistan that are grappling with army dictatorship and the fascism of the obscurantist religious hordes. The devastation wrought by religious and racial bouts nudged Norway to transcend notions of superiority of any particular race or religion.

It has also, rather warmly, accommodated immigrants from almost every faith and culture like Hindus, Buddhists, Bahais, Sikhs and Muslims. About one fifth of its five million strong population are not Christians while nearly one hundred thousand of them are Muslims including about 32,000 from Pakistan. Yet this multiculturalism also rankles some rather refractory factions still yearning for the revival and exclusive supremacy of the pure Nordic breed and Christian faith. Such extremist segments, found in almost every west European nation, have herded into the so called ultra rightists parties. Their ideas, at least broadly, are almost the same as echoed in the 1,503 page manifesto compiled, reportedly, by this monstrous mass murderer. It rails against Islam, calls for a Christian crusade to defend Europe against Muslim dominance and denounces the feminism and reluctance of Christian females to breed faster to match the fast multiplying Muslim migrants. It also praises some conservative clergy, politicians, writers and orators known for their aversion against the Muslim mindset or their advice to adopt and respect western values. He is similarly also known to have demanded to dismiss the premier, dethrone the king and hand himself the command of Norway’s forces. This maverick manifesto, for the people in Pakistan, evidently echoes the ideas paraded by their own terrorists and extremist circles.

Yet the marvellous aspect of the Norwegian spirit, tradition and culture is that the largest part of their populace, major parties and institutions have repeatedly reaffirmed their resolve and repugnance against these anachronistic notions through patent democratic modes, legal codes and the actual construct and conduct of their institutions. Norwegian society, for instance, despite this stunning loss, has once again affirmed its commitment to combat racial discrimination. The dominant desire for peace and the non-violent mood of these societies and espousal to resolve even their most pernicious irritants through debate and dialogue had mostly relegated these forces to minor clusters. Their methods, despite their ardent passion, restive mood and occasional spasmodic aberrations by some individuals generally have not been so violent. The macabre Breivik act, however, has generated a new monstrous trend likely to incite some other dormant cells or desperados. His gruesome strategy to snuff out the lives of the youth likely to lead the Labour Party, known for its relatively more liberal and cosmopolitan outlook, shows the height of a new morbid fanaticism.

A really disturbing fact is that the incipient violent streaks in western extremists, to a large extent, have erupted as a reaction to the raft of violent extremism ravaging Muslim countries. The extremists in the western and Muslim world, thus despite their venom and vitriolic against each other, are out to scuttle the shared world ideals for peace, democracy and a symbiotic global interaction to combat hunger, disease, degradation of the environment and the quality of life and habitat. The enthusiasts of these ideals, thus, need more concerted and trans-border endeavours to extirpate militant extremist thought and practices.

The writer is an academic and freelance columnist.

Source: The Daily Times, Lahore

The conflict in Libya has all the features of a civil war. The country is divided along the people's love and hatred for the embattled Muammar Gaddafi, who has been ruling this North African country for the past 42 years with an iron fist masqueraded as people's democracy.

Age-old rivalries among Libya's tribes have resurfaced to add fuel to the burning rebellion in the oil-rich east, where the people have often complained of favoured treatment for the western part of the country in the distribution of national wealth.

With leaders representing powerful tribes such as the Wafrallah, Zawiya, Bani Walid and Zintan withdrawing their loyalty from Gaddafi, their tribesmen in the military have deserted camp and joined the revolt, adding a military character to the people's uprising and making it different from the people's power revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.

Gaddafi was not unprepared for the defections. He has filled the military's top posts with officers from his Qadhafa tribe or from tribes loyal to him. He made his paramilitary forces comprising largely men from his tribe and other loyal tribes more powerful than the military. The conflict, therefore, is not without tribal undertones with the battle lines dividing the more populated and less developed east and the less populated and more developed west.

Preparing to pitch camp in the bloody desert is the imperialist West which, salivating over Libya's oil, is pushing for a United Nations approved no-fly zone as part of its plan to invade the country on the pretext of humanitarian intervention.

A no-fly zone means Libyan government forces, which are checking the rebel advance towards the west of the country with some success, will not be able to use aircraft in the war. If they do, the Western powers will shoot down the aircraft and destroy Libya's airstrips and airbases. This will mean a full-scale war between Libya and the Western powers.

With the Libyan military being no match to the military might of the West, such a situation will tilt the balance in favour of the Libyan opposition forces and may lead to the ouster of the embattled Libyan leader or to the fragmentation of the country along a ceasefire line determined by the Western powers safeguarding their oil interests.

But having a foothold in Libya won't be as easy as the imperialists think. Their modus operandi in the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq may not work in the case of Libya. In Afghanistan, they befriended the Northern Alliance to oust the Taliban regime. In Iraq, the Kurds and the Shiites who had been oppressed by Saddam Hussein helped the US-led coalition forces in the invasion. But in Libya, the opposition, or at least a powerful section of it, is anti-West.

The opposition is a motley group united by their common hatred to Gaddafi. It consists of powerful tribes, Islamists and those who defected from the Gaddafi camp, especially former ministers. It is believed that some sections of the opposition, especially the government officials and officers who defected, had secret links with the West and are trying to hijack the revolt to suit the agenda of their imperialist backers. But they find it difficult because of the strong presence of Islamists in the opposition alliance. This is the ground reality which the war-hungry British Prime Minister David Cameron unsuccessfully tried to assess by sending a secret military mission to Libya's east last week. The Libyan opposition — read Islamists — arrested and detained them for two days before they were finally allowed to set sail for Malta.

That the Libyan revolt is Islamic in character is being deliberately under-reported by the western media although slogans on the battlefield vouch for it. Even the pro-US Qatari-government-funded Al-Jazeera television will not talk about it although Gaddafi keeps on harping that al-Qaeda backed Islamists are orchestrating the rebellion.

The eastern part of Libya has been the base of the country's Islamists. It was also the birth place of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). According to the Washington-based Centre for Defence Information, LIFG is a band of radical Islamists dedicated to overthrowing the Gaddafi regime and replacing it with a government modelled on the Sunna (practices) of the Prophet Muhammad.

The LIFG believes that the Gaddafi regime is oppressive, corrupt and apostate. The group comprises warriors who fought alongside Mujahideens in Afghanistan in the war against the Soviet Union. After the war they returned to Libya and formed the LIFG with the intention of ousting the corrupt regime of Gaddafi and uniting the Muslim world and making them powerful. In 1996, they tried to assassinate Gaddafi. The botched attempt led to a brutal crackdown on the group and the arrest of several leaders.

Captured leaders later pleaded with their followers to give up the fight, but only a few heeded the call. Many LIFG youth who are fiercely anti-West left the country; some joined the jihad against the American occupiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, many eventually returned after disagreement with al-Qaeda.

The United States and Britain have branded the group as a terrorist organization and frozen its assets. But the group's members are heroes in the more religious east, where they are protected by powerful tribes, among whom is Imnifa that gave Libya Omar Mukhtar, the legendary freedom warrior. Mukhtar's heroic life story was made into a Hollywood movie with Anthony Quinn in the lead role. His 90-year-old son, Mohammed Omar Mukhtar, cautions those who try to describe the Libyan war as a conflict between tribes. He is hopeful that all the tribes will come together again to oust Gaddafi, displaying the same unity that existed when his father led the war against the Italian colonialists.

The Islamists, it appears, are standing in the way of the imperialists' war agenda in Libya. Yet the West is trying to hide the lead role the Islamists are playing in the rebellion, for obvious reasons. Well, after all, in realpolitik even a terrorist can be a bedfellow.

In the past few years, paranoid conservatives have cooked up all sorts of conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama. Some have claimed he has a secret plan to confiscate guns. Others have said he has a secret plan to confiscate IRA accounts. Still others have contended he's setting up clandestine FEMA concentration camps. And, of course, there's the big one: Obama's is an undercover socialist purposefully trying to wreck the US economy so he can implement a dictatorial takeover. But here's the mother of all right-wing conspiracy theories: Obama is scheming to bring tens of millions of Muslims—perhaps up to 100 million—from the Middle East into the United States in order to turn this country into an Islamic nation by the end of his second term.

Fortunately, this diabolical plan has been exposed by an American-born Israeli named Avi Lipkin, who says he once was a translator for the Israeli government, and an outfit called Special Guests, which books conservative

commentators and advocates on popular television and radio talk shows. Lipkin's website claims that since 1990 he has lectured on various topics—including the threat of Islam and Israel—in over 1000 churches and synagogues in the United Sates, Canada, England, Greece, Israel, and other countries. His bio notes that he heads the Judeo-Christian Bible Bloc party in Israel. (The party's Facebook page listed 103 members yesterday.)

This week, Lipkin and Special Guests sent an email to television and radio bookers pitching the biggest story of all time:

According to Arabic language broadcasts intercepted and interpreted by Lipkin and his team, "The Moslem world is saying that President Obama wants amnesty for the current Hispanic 12 million illegal immigrants in the US in order to pave the way for the next wave of tens of millions of illegals from the Middle East to the United States, leading to 50 to 100 million Muslims living in the US before the end of Obama’s second term, which will be brought forth by these new US citizens voting for their savior, Obama."

Lipkin, who also goes by the name Victor Mordechai, claims to have "a source with a senior United Nations official" (whatever that means) who says that the United States "will be a Muslim country by the end of Obama's second term." This grand plan is so organized that it even has three parts. Phase One: Obama foments unrest in "each Middle East country" so that these regimes are toppled and replaced by "fanatic" Sunni Mulsims, who go on to "overthrow the competing Shiite regime in Iran without involving American troops." Phase Two: A massive exodus of Muslims heads toward Europe, Canada, and the Unites States, turning all of these Western nations into Muslim countries. Phase Three: The nations now controlled by Islamic extremists "march on Israel in an effort to destroy it" and Obama "keeps his promise…to destroy Israel."

Of course, there's a YouTube video (embedded below) that explains Lipkin's scoop. It's called, "Is Barack Obama Really A Saudi/Muslim 'Plant' in the White House?" The answer is obvious. The video claims that "for years before" the 2008 election, Lipkin's wife, who worked for the Israeli government monitoring Arabic radio broadcasts, picked up broadcasts of Saudis saying, "We will have a a Muslim in the White House in 2008." (Remember Obama's bow before the Saudi king in 2009? Wink, wink.) The video notes that Obama has refused "to reveal" his long-form birth certificate "or anything else about his past." (Convergence with the birthers!) The video suggests that Obama and his crew have pulled off the "greatest…scam in history" and "put an anti-American and Saudi-sponsored Muslim in the White House, thanks to a brain-dead American public and news media, both obsessed with skin color and an American Idol mentality." The video goes on to say that in 2009 Lipkin's wife listened to an Egyptian television broadcast featuring the then-foreign minister saying that Obama had sworn to him that he was a Muslim. Obama—according to Lipkin's account of his wife's account of the foreign minister's account—also told this Egyptian official that after he finished with the health care debate, "You Muslims will see what I will do for Islam regarding Israel."

The video does not specifically cover Obama's secret scheme to bring up to 100 million Muslims into the United States. But isn't that what a Saudi plant would do?

Avi Lipkin puts Glenn Beck to shame as a conspiracy theorist. But though he's on the fringe, he's not on his own. His video has been viewed 2.9 million times. And Special Guests is an outfit that works within the conservative establishment. According to its website, the organization has collaborated with the National Right To Life Committee, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, the Second Amendment Foundation, and other conservative groups. The site boasts, "We regularly place guests on radio shows including Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity Radio, [and] Michael Savage." The group says it only promotes causes that "are pleasing to The Maker, our Creator." It asks potential clients, "What is your special message? Is it helpful to humanity? Is it God-honoring?" Apparently, it pleases God to accuse the president of covertly plotting—and implementing!—a Muslim takeover of the United States.