Defence`s Feeds

Saudi Arabia’s multibillion-dollar order for General Dynamics Land Systems Canada (GDLS-C) Light Armoured Vehicles (LAVs) could be jeopardised by the emergence of video footage showing Canadian-made vehicles purportedly being used in a security operation in a Shia area in the east of the

In Janikhail, Paktia, security forces retaliated after Taliban militants raided check posts in the district.

Event Spain's Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfonso Dastis signalled on 6 August that the country will maintain a flexible approach with regards to EU-UK negotiations over Brexit. He told Spain's ABC daily newspaper that he "doesn't condition a London – EU agreement on recovering

Singapore Technologies Engineering (ST Engineering) posted declines in earnings and profits in the second quarter of 2017, the group announced on 11 August. The company said its earnings before interest and tax for the quarter ending 30 June declined year on year (y/y) by 5% to SGD130.8 million

AT LEAST two people were wounded when a suicide bomber detonated their explosives targeting a security checkpoint in Bini Hissar locality in Afghanistan's capital Kabul on 9 August, Tolo News reported. There were conflicting reports about whether a fatality caused by the attack was a civilian or the

Russian RSD-10 Pioner (SS-20 Saber) Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile

The US Navy's second Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), also known as Ike, is set to undergo its planned incremental availability (PIA) at Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) in Portsmouth, Virginia.

Joint venture (JV) partners Sener and Babcock have completed the delivery of the fourth upgraded Agusta Bell 212 (AB212) helicopter to the Spanish Ministry of Defence.

Kilgore Flares Co LCC has won a contract worth $30.79m to produce and deliver up to 1,260,638 SM-875/ALE simulator flares, which will be used by US Navy pilots and ordnance technicians.

US Embassy Manila Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) Michael Klecheski has transferred the custody of a new Joint Maritime Law Enforcement Training Center (JMLETC) to the Philippines.

In this issue: Autonomous systems for frontline resupply, electric hub-drive technology for armoured vehicles, the F-35’s arrival in Europe, how to turn an air force base into a ‘smart base’, the future of littoral warfare and more.

Americas

• Against the backdrop of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un threatening each other with nuclear annihilation, Lockheed Martin has reported an increased number of missile defense queries from customers. The company said Tuesday that the “level of dialogue around missile defense is now at the prime minister and minister of defense level,” adding that over the last 12-18 months, countries have increasingly put missile defense at the top of their list of desired capabilities, as tensions in East Asia mount over North Korea’s insistence on furthering its nuclear weapon ambitions. Reuters notes that shares in Lockheed are up nearly 8 percent, to $300.10, since North Korea’s first long-range missile test on July 4. The stock is up 20 percent year-to-date.

• Kratos Defense and Security Solutions has said that a secret UAV developed by the company will enter production by the end of this financial quarter. News that Kratos had such a platform was revealed by the company earlier this year when it announced a series of successful demonstration flights with a new jet-powered, high-subsonic UAV. It’s believed that the drone is being developed for an unknown government agency and is designed for an anti-access area denied environment with an altitude performance ranging up to 45,000ft. It’s launched on a railed catapult and recovered by deploying a parachute and floating to the ground.

Middle East & Africa

• Turkey has contracted local manufacturer BMC for the production and delivery of 529 tactical armored vehicles. Estimated to value $350 million, the deal will also see contributions from other local companies designated as sub-contractors. The contract also requests an unspecified number of the Yeni Kirpi— an advanced version of the Kirpi—BMC’s mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle which was showcased in May 2017 at the IDEF defense and aerospace exhibition in Istanbul. Once delivered, the vehicles will primarily be used in Turkey’s southeastern regions where security forces have been tackling renewed violence from Kurdish militant group, the PKK, since the breakdown of a ceasefire in July 2015.

• Production of interceptors jointly-developed by US and Israeli industry for the latter’s multi-tiered missile defense system is being ramped up, as three interceptor programs transition from low-rate initial production (LRIP) to full-rate production. The Boeing-IAI developed Arrow-3, and the Rafael-Raytheon developed Stunner—used in the David’s Sling system—and Tamir—used by the Iron Dome—interceptors are built in a large part by US-based firms, with a network of contractors and sub-contractors stretching out across 30 of its 50 states. This is due to congressional mandates and government-to-government agreements which stipulates that at least 50% of the work is produced in the US. Potential exports are also being taken into account, as the Stunner—marketed abroad as the SkyCeptor—is currently being considered by the Polish government for its Patriot active defense system.

Europe

• The crash of a German army Tiger helicopter in Mali which resulted in the death of two crew members was caused by the rotorcraft losing its rotor, a defense ministry report has revealed. While the report stated that it is still to early to speculate on the cause of the accident, it ruled out that the helicopter was downed in an attack, adding that “once the vehicle had started to descend, parts of the aircraft broke off, including the main rotor blades.” This could potentially mean that the cause of the in-air break up was due to maintenance or manufacturing issues, which if it is the case, could be bad news for manufacturer Airbus. Berlin’s decision to send four Tigers alongside four NH-90 helicopters to aid a UN peacekeeping mission in Mali earlier this year proved controversial with some lawmakers, after the Tiger required extra maintenance given the high heat and other environmental conditions in the desert country. Officials maintain that up until the incident, all four Tigers had been operating without issue.

Asia Pacific

• India’s Kalyani Group, in partnership with Israel’s Rafael, has opened the country’s first-ever private missile subsystems manufacturing facility. Located in Hyrdabad and trading under the name Kalyani Rafael Advanced Systems, the facility will undertake the production and assembly of Spike anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) and its related technologies such as missile electronics, command, control and guidance, electro-optics, remote weapon systems, precision-guided munitions, and system engineering. In addition to establishing a robust supply chain in India to undertake spares and other parts requirements of missiles to be manufactured in the country, the joint venture will also look to export Spike ATGM family and SPICE precision-guided munitions to Southeast Asian counties. The company can also boast the status of being India’s largest-ever foreign direct investment joint venture firm.

• The war, which has thankfully remained one of just words, between the leaders of the US and North Korea continue this week after US President Donald Trump promised that North Korea would would be met with “fire and fury” if it continued its aggressive testing of intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear technology. Not deterred by such remarks, Kim Jung-un threatened nuclear strikes on the island of Guam, a US territory in the Pacific that boasts a military base that includes a submarine squadron, an airbase and a Coast Guard group. In the absence of any diplomatic tact from both leaders, Guam Governor Eddie Calvo dismissed the threat and said the island was prepared for “any eventuality” with strategically placed defenses. He said he had been in touch with the White House and there was no change in the threat level.

Today’s Video

• Carrier Queen Elizabeth strike group, Saxon Warrior 2017:

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has awarded a new four-year contract to Cubic Defence Australia for the development and provision of local and distributed simulation-enabled training events.

Atlas Elektronik has secured a £48m contract from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to construct and deliver up to 38 workboats for the British Royal Navy.

The Egyptian Navy has officially received the second of four Howaldtswerke-Deutche Werft (HDW) 209/1400mod-class submarines from Germany.

Armed militants have overrun Afghan Local Police (ALP) and a public uprising unit’s posts in the Mirza Olang village of Sayad district in Sar-e Pul province on 6 August 2017. Dozens of civilians were reportedly killed. There is another dimension, however, that created widespread international media reporting about the incident: claims by local officials that Taleban and Daesh fighters – usually fighting each other – had committed the atrocities in a “rare joint” operation. AAN’s Obaid Ali explored the insurgents’ configuration in this area and found no Daesh presence there (with input from Thomas Ruttig).

On 3 August 2017, the Taleban carried out a large-scale assault against positions of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) and public uprising units stationed in Mirza Olang village, roughly 15 kilometers south of Sayad district. Its population mainly consists of Shia Hazaras. Afghan media, quoting local officials (see for example here), reported a large number of civilian casualties. (The Taleban denied that allegation, see here.) On 8 August 2017, the release of 235 hostages was reported, but provincial authorities said more were still “trapped.” A local ALP commander told AAN about 40 families were caught up in the fighting and their fate remains unclear.

UNAMA stated that it was investigating the reports. If the reports about the civilian killings are confirmed and local Taleban commanders are responsible, it would represent a departure from the repeatedly declared official Taleban position that the Shia minority is not considered a target and would be tantamount to another war crime.

The Taleban attack on ALP and uprising positions in Mirza Olang, however, corresponds with patterns observed in other provinces more generally. In Baghlan province, for instance, the Taleban conducted a large-scale offensive against ALP and public uprising bases led by a Hazara commander in 2016 who refused to surrender his security checkpoint at Surkh Kotal (read previous AAN analysis on this here). ALP units have also been targeted in Zabul and Uruzgan provinces, in some cases over long periods of time (AAN analysis here, here and here).

Sayad district borders Qush Tepa and Darzab, both also highly contested districts of neighbouring Jawzjan province in the west and southwest and Belcheragh district of Faryab and Kohistanat district of Sar-e Pul in the south. Kohistanat was captured by the Taleban in July 2015 and remains largely under Taleban control. The militants consider Mirza Olang a strategic area from where they can threaten Sayad’s district centre as well as the highway leading to Kohistanat district of Sar-e Pul further in the south. Both districts have been in the focus of Taleban activity in this remote northern province for a number of years. Their most recent attack on Sayad occurred in April this year. Kohistanat has been largely controlled by the Taleban since summer 2015, and its district centre has changed hands several times over the past two years, in July 2015 and again in late July this year, only to be reclaimed by Afghan government forces two days later (reporting here and here).

Eyewitness: how the resistance collapsed

The ALP and public uprising units in the village are led by Hazara commanders. In total, they were able to muster only under 70 fighters from the Hazara community: 36 from the ALP unit and from the 30 public uprising forces.

Gul Hussain Sharifi, the leading ALP commander in Mirza Olang, told AAN the Taleban had been besieging the security checkpoints for two years. According to him, the local government ignored several requests to send in reinforcements. For the recent clash, he added, the Taleban had gathered fighters from all around the province, and the limited number of the local security forces were not able to defeat them. After a day and half of intense clashes, one ALP member and four public uprising fighters were killed. Eventually elders from the village approached him, asking him to retreat with his fighters as otherwise all of them would be captured or killed by the militants. (According to established guidelines, elders vet the ALP members from their villages.)

In early morning of 6 August 2017, Sharifi told AAN, he and his fighters and members of the public uprising group members fled to provincial centre all along with their families. That led to the collapse of the security checkpoints, after which point other villagers also fled the area. Only ten families along with four elders stayed in the village. According to Sharifi, some families who intended to flee got stuck in the Mirza Olang valley where fighting was going on. He said that “35 civilians who wanted to flee from the village were shot dead by militants.”

Habib Qasemi, another ALP commander in the area who resisted against the Taleban in the recent assault and managed to flee to provincial centre, told AAN that over the past two years most of the public uprising fighters had left their jobs due to a fear that the area will fall into the militants’ hand. In that period, he said,their number dropped from 150 fighters to only 30. He said that “this is not enough force to protect this strategic area.”

Taleban structures in Sayad

The Taleban had established a strong, multi-ethnic foothold in Sar-e Pul at least by 2012 (see AAN analysis here), starting from first pockets in 2009 (see this AAN report, p4). The province is another example where they successfully recruited and integrated non-Pashtuns; most of the positions in the local Taleban structures are held by them (AAN’s previous analysis on this here). This leaves limited potential space for Daesh-affiliated groups, and there have been no reports that such cases were successful over the longer term.

A recently published report by Kabul-based The Liaison Office and German institute BICC mentions two cases from late 2015 when “influential local commanders—a Tajik affiliated with Hizb-e Islami in Kohistan and an Arab described as Salafi Taliban—had independently ‘invited’ Daesh to their respective area to increase their power base“ through “Urdu-speaking Pakistani guests.” Reportedly, the ‘guests’ left the province again after about a month, and there was no indication that “a link had been created with [Daesh’s Afghan headquarters in] Nangarhar and the Daesh Shura.” The report also mentions that the Taleban’s difficulties with guaranteeing a steady flow of supplies to local commanders might encourage them to look for other sponsors.

In the case of Sayad, Mullah Nader leads the Taleban in the district. He is an Aimaq from Al-Malek village in Sayad and served as a group leader during the Taleban’s Emirate in the 1990s. After the fall of the Taleban regime in 2001, he laid down his weapons and ran a small business (most likely drug smuggling) in Kohistanat district. He was arrested by government forces in 2003 and later managed to escape. He has been reported active in the area again at least since 2010 and re-established the Taleban movement in the province by mobilising fighters from his town and his network of drug smugglers. Since then he has served in different posts in the Taleban’s shadow administrative and military structure. Recently, Mullah Nader has been appointed as the Taleban’s shadow district governor for Sayad.

According to sources close to the Taleban in Sar-e Pul, he has strong family relations with Sher Muhammad, another Taleban mid-level commander in Sayad. Sher Muhammad (alias Ghazanfar) is also an Aimaq, from Kandah village of Sayad. He received a religious education in Sar-e Pul and is currently leading a small group of 25 fighters, mostly his relatives and villagers.

After the recent attack and the killings in Mirza Olang, many media outlets quoted Sayad’s district governor Sharif Aminyar, claiming that Ghazanfar is Daesh-affiliated. Speaking to AAN, provincial council member Aref Sharifi also said there was no difference between Daesh and the Taleban in the district and that both groups cooperated and conducted coordinated offensives against security forces.

The recent attack on the Sayad security posts was led by Mullah Nader. Ghazanfar and his fighters fought with them under the Taleban banner. The Taleban also claimed Ghazanfar as their commander after the recent fighting in Sayad (read here), indirectly, though perhaps not intentionally, assigning responsibility to him for the killings of civilians in Sayad.

According to sources close to Taleban in Sar-e Pul, before the fighting, Ghazanfar had reportedly visited Daesh-affiliated commander Qari Hekmat in his area of operation in Qush Tepa district of Jawzjan. According to onging AAN research, Hekmat is an Uzbek and former Taleban commander who had been expelled from the movement after a dispute over taxation with the Taleban shadow provincial governor and ‘unauthorised kidnappings’ and subsequently declared allegiance with Daesh. He largely controls Qush Tepa district. (The Jawzjan insurgency will be discussed in more detail in an upcoming AAN’s dispatch.) It is possible that Ghazanfar even declared allegiance to Daesh as the New York Times reported.

According to those sources, however, Mullah Nader reached out to Ghazanfar and brought him back to Sayad with his group of 25 fighters and under the Taleban banner.

Conclusion

The Taleban’s large presence, their obvious intention to eliminate rival groups and their superior manpower and resources limit the space for Daesh to establish a footprint in areas such as Sayad, and in fact in most areas of northern and north-eastern Afghanistan (read our previous dispatch on this here and here). With Salafist influences and sympathies for Daesh spreading among some limited religious circles and younger fighters, or due to funding and supply issues, local commanders might find it opportune to signal readiness to ally to Daesh, or at least explore the option. This seems to have been the case with commander Ghazanfar. His case and research quoted above also show that the Taleban are still able to rein in such commanders in most cases. In this light, to interpret the Sayad attack as a joint ‘Taleban-Daesh’ operation stretches the facts too far.

 

With more than 30 years of experience in developing, manufacturing and testing 2-stroke engines, 3W has designed and patented the newest generation of gas engines for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry.

Americas

• The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has given Raytheon a $66.4 million contract modification for the Standard Missile-3 Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense program. Work will be carried out in Tuscon, Ariz and includes engineering work, support services and analysis of the SM-3 Block IIA missile and BMD 5.1 flight testing and certification. Scheduled completion has been given for Sep. 30, 2018. This modification brings the total contract cost to $2.07 billion.

• Raytheon has been awarded a $25.9 million US Air Force contract for modifications and retrofitting of sensors on the RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 30 UAV. Under the terms of the deal, work to be provided by the firm includes engineering for upgrades to the Enhanced Integrated Sensor Suite and retrofitting of the Enhanced Electro-Optical Receiving Unit on Global Hawks. The work will be performed in El Segundo, Calif., with an expected completion date of Feb. 4, 2019.

Middle East & Africa

• Kratos has received a $46.2 million contract awarded by the US Department of Defense to provide training and technical services in support of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 program. Work on the foreign military sale will take place in both Saudi Arabia and Orlando, Fla., and is scheduled for completion by August 2020. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 program aims to broaden the country’s investments away from oil, implement government services reform, and building its own defense industry. The plan hopes to localize 50 percent of defense spending in Saudi Arabia, reducing costs and dependence on foreign military equipment and boosting the Saudi defense export sector.

• Russia is to test its Mi-28UB attack helicopter in Syria, according to Russian Helicopters CEO, Andrei Boginsky. The helicopter, which has a combined combat and training configuration of the Mi-28N Night Hunter and features dual controls for both crew members, will be used primarily to train new pilots but can also take part in combat operations. Russian Helicopters expects to deliver eight new Mi-28UB units to the Russian Aerospace Forces by the end of the year, with the first to be delivered to the 344th center of combat training and retraining center in Torzhok.

Europe

• Estonia firm Milrem has brought its Titan unmanned ground vehicle to Michigan, USA, as it looks for US sub-contractors to help with production. The UGV is a joint effort with QinetiQ North America and is comprised of a modular hybrid unmanned ground vehicle from Milrem and a tactical robot controller and applique kit from QNA. The system is being displayed at the Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium, and has been selected by the US Army’s Squad Maneuver Equipment Transport program for testing. In addition to acting as a support platform for dismounted troops, it can also be used to carry remote weapon stations with small- and large-caliber weapons.

• France’s Scorpion modernization program is likely to suffer a funding hit as Paris looks to skim $1 billion off this year’s defense budget. The comments were made to Parliament by former chief of staff Army Gen. Pierre de Villiers prior to his resignation on July 19. “If we do not receive the required funding, we will need to postpone this program, with all the consequences that will entail,” he said, adding that Contact—a key software-defined radio used on the program’s vehicles—is expected to be a casualty. Thales supplies the Contact system and is an industrial partner with Nexter and Renault Trucks Defense on the Griffon troop carrier as well as the Jaguar reconnaissance and combat vehicle being developed under the Scorpion program.

Asia Pacific

• A bipartisan delegation of Taiwanese lawmakers visiting the US last week have struck a deal for turbofan engines to power its indigenous advanced jet trainer. During the visit, the delegation visited the International Turbine Engine Co (ITEC)—a joint venture between US-based Honeywell Aerospace and Taiwan’s Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC), created to facilitate technology transfers to and procurement by Taiwan— and convinced Honeywell to drop a planned price hike on the engines, which would have imposed an additional cost of billions of New Taiwan dollars and complicated the government’s plans for the trainer’s development. Lawmakers from both parties—the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)—told the US contractors that no additional budget for the engines’ procurement is available under Taiwan’s parliamentary rules, and any price hike would delay the purchase.

• South Korea is planning to acquire another batch of 90 Taurus air-to-ground cruise missiles from Germany’s Taurus Systems GmbH, with local technology and electronics firms now allowed to join the offset program for the purchase. The firms have been asked to submit a list of products that they want to sell to the German firm, which includes personal computers and electric parts. In addition to the Taurus missiles, the Pentagon stated on Monday that it was reviewing bilateral ballistic missile guidelines with South Korea that could allow Seoul to have more powerful missiles as tensions with North Korea rise over its missile and nuclear programs.

Today’s Video

• The Honeywell engine that will power Taiwan’s advanced jet trainer:

https://youtu.be/hWPuzQhawlI

An Iranian QOM-1 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has made an unsafe and unprofessional interaction with the US Navy fighter jet F/A-18E Super Hornet, the US Central Command (Centcom) officials confirmed.

The Government of Canada has awarded a new contract to Marine Recycling for the disposal of two Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) vessels.