Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller

by BMichaelsAuthor

  Puzzled, the General asked, “How old is the A-Mail account?”

  “She created it yesterday.”

  “Has anyone else in Omar’s network used A-Mail?”

  “Not to our knowledge,” replied the analyst. “They mostly use TorMail2.” TorMail2 was an encrypted email service provider available on the Darknet. The Darknet was the portion of the Deep Web that was only accessible with Tor software. “All the other emails we’ve purloined from Nafisa were TorMail2’s. We were able to read them because we exfiltrated the encryption key from her laptop.”

  The General frowned. “So Nafisa goes and registers a brand new A-Mail account from Dabiq, even though she’s demonstrated previous knowledge of encryption by the use of TorMail2? Then she emails her father in Falluja? I’m assuming we intercepted it at the Baghdad telecom center. Something isn’t right. No one in the Caliphate uses A-Mail. It’s totally out of character for Omar, or anyone in Omar’s circle, to make an error of this magnitude.”

  “Maybe she just made a mistake,” said Phil. “Or, she could think that we can’t break A-Mail’s encryption they initiated after PRISM.” PRISM was a TOP SECRET program leaked to the press by Snowden’s disclosures. PRISM detailed how the NSA cooperated with nine major Internet companies to gather SIGINT, even encrypted SIGINT.

  Phil continued, “The CEO of Nucleus made a big deal about their end-to-end, A-Mail encryption in the press. He assured his users that their privacy was secure.” Nucleus’ CEO either didn’t know or didn’t want to admit, that the NSA already had all of Nucleus’ encryption keys. The NSA could monitor all encrypted A-Mail traffic. US-only A-Mail traffic could be read with a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance—FISA—court. The FISA court granted warrants to the NSA over 97% of the time.

  “I don’t know why she sent an A-Mail,” said the Caliphate analyst. “But, I do know that the intercept was sent by the same person that emailed these verified intercepts. And that’s Nafisa Omar.

  “Look, here’s one of the email intercepts from four years ago. Her dad was also the recipient. You can see the same structure, even in Arabic. Now, look at it translated. She uses the same word for her dad, ‘abee,’ which means, ‘my dad.’ She writes it again and again, in both emails. She employs the exact same vocabulary, sentence structure, indentation, and punctuation. Her description of Dabiq is dead on.”

  Another analyst in the Caliphate cell spoke up. “Sir, while he’s been trying to validate the message, I’ve been looking at what it tells us. As you know, Dabiq is a tiny town. I ran a qeo-query on the area, incorporating a list of known SIM cards. Right in this house…”—the analyst pointed at the satellite image on his screen—“is a SIM card. We associated this SIM card with Omar 10 months ago.” SIM stood for subscriber identity module. SIM cards assigned ownership of a cell phone for billing records.

  An embedded CIA analyst spoke next. “General, I’ve got a Marauder over the area. Here’s the house.” The analyst pointed to his monitor with the Marauder feed. “You can also see that there’s a small cluster of other homes, right here.” Marauders were stealth, turbofan aerial drones that replaced Predators and Reapers. Although they were called drones, each drone was manned by two people—a drone pilot and a sensor operator.

  “Alright,” said the General. “I’m sure this SIGINT is valid. Send out confirmation of the CRITIC.” It was 3:23 a.m.

  Now the question was, what was POTUS going to do about this validated CRITIC?

  *

  Within 30 minutes, General Shields was on a secure teleconference with POTUS, the DCIA, and other senior military leaders. The top military brass included the Admiral in command of the Joint Special Operations Command—JSOC. JSOC was pronounced, ‘J-Sock.’

  JSOC tracked and eliminated terrorist cells worldwide. JSOC, at the behest of the CIA, was the lead organization in charge of the kill/ capture mission for Osama Bin Laden. Like the NSA, JSOC and the CIA were involved in significant turf battles. The Admiral told the President that he had a Delta Force on standby to kill/ capture Omar. However, he recommended waiting for at least 48 hours. He wanted to gather more intelligence.

  The DCIA, Walt Black, was much more aggressive. He wanted to act now. He tried to convince POTUS to approve a night-time, kill or capture raid on the house. He emphasized the word capture.

  “Mr. President, I’ve got a CIA strike team that can snatch Omar, tonight. The moon is waning, so we’re dealing with low levels of ambient light. The weather is perfect for air operations; there’s not a cloud in the sky. After Omar is secured, the assault team can gather computers, laptops, and cell phones. Then, we can whisk him to a black site and interrogate the son-of-a-bitch. Omar is full of vital information. Look, these guys are the junior varsity of terrorists. They’re untrained, unsophisticated, religious thugs. This won’t be a difficult mission.”

  General Shields completely disagreed with the DCIA’s assessment of the Caliphate and his recommendation of a human strike team. The JSOC Commander voiced support for the General’s position.

  “Walt, you guys just don’t get the Caliphate. You can’t explain why this JV team has been growing so fast, for over eight years. You can’t explain why they continue to attract foreign fighters from all over the world, even after our bombs and missile strikes. You’ve got almost no one inside the organization.”

  “Walt, they’ve controlled large swaths of Syria and Iraq for nearly a decade. That’s because they’re the police, military, and government for disenfranchised Sunnis. Given a choice between the Shia-led, Iraqi government in Baghdad, or the Caliphate; the Sunnis choose the Caliphate. Think how messed up that is! Sunnis would rather have the Caliphate, than their own government?

  “The Syrian government won’t take care of the Sunnis. The Iraqi government won’t take care of the Sunnis. But the Caliphate will. They provide services and protection. They build schools, mosques, and hospitals. They don’t round up Sunnis and throw them into prisons without charges.

  “That’s more than the Shiite governments of Iran and Syria were doing for the Sunnis. Now don’t get me wrong, these guys are diabolical murderers and gangsters. But you have to understand why the Sunnis protect them.

  “Moreover, their social media propaganda machine is incredibly efficient at attracting recruits from all over the world. To their volunteers, the Caliphate offers a seventh-century utopia. ‘Come, join the Caliphate. Get paid to serve God. Find a sex slave. We have them from nine years on up. Kill infidels. Be a part of history.’

  “Money, sex, and power offered to a generation of pissed off young men? We can’t kill them fast enough. For every Jihadi we kill, another foreign fighter sneaks across the border and enlists. That’s not just in Syria and Iraq. As you know, the Caliphate views itself as a state without borders. It has members fighting in Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and throughout Africa. You’d better take them a lot more seriously.

  The DCIA told Shield’s he didn’t need a lecture on the Caliphate from DIRNSA.

  “Walt, you know me well. And you know how much it pains me to say this. If ever there was a mission designed for a drone strike—this is it. We can do it immediately. What’s to say that Omar doesn’t leave the house today, and go someplace else before your nighttime raid? We all know that this is not Omar’s primary headquarters. He won’t be here long.”

  Omar was on the kill list approved by POTUS. They had three pieces of SIGNIT; the email, the SIM card location, and eyes on the target, via the Marauder. Drone strikes only required two pieces of intelligence, if the subject was on the approved list. Ideally, one piece of information would be HUMINT—information from spies or informants.

  But the CIA had almost no HUMINT on the Caliphate. Nearly every kill decision performed on the Caliphate was based exclusively on NSA generated SIGNIT, especially SIM cards. Essentially, missiles targeted SIM cards. Whoever was near the SIM card would die.

  Advocating a drone strike was particularly hard for Gene
ral Shields. If there was anything stronger than the General’s hatred of CIA Director Black, it was the CIA with a bevy of lethally armed drones.

  As a member of the Air Force, the General could never understand why the CIA was allowed to operate their own private air force. And today’s drones were becoming ever more sophisticated ISR platforms, designed to pick up SIGINT. SIGINT was clearly the NSA’s job. Intelligence collection was also the main reason for the CIA’s turf battles with JSOC. The General argued with anyone who would listen. The CIA’s job was human intelligence—HUMINT, not SIGINT. Under his breath, the General said, “This is exactly why I need SWARM.”

  For his part, President Goodson was facing a complex dilemma.

  Syria was not a country. Syria was an unmitigated disaster. It had been a disaster since the Arab Spring demonstrations and subsequent government crackdown in 2011. Nine years later, Syria was still a disaster. The vacuum of leadership in Syria led directly to the growth of ISIS, and later the Caliphate.

  Iran, Russia, and Iran’s proxy—Hezbollah, assisted the Syrian government. Iran provided forces from their Revolutionary Guards, money, weapons, and intelligence. Russia provided intelligence, air support, and a small group of soldiers. Hezbollah provided many fighters, especially experienced soldiers from Lebanon. And all of these forces augmented Syria’s National Defense Force composed of Alawites, Shiites, and some Christians. These forces coordinated to defend essential government assets.

  In late 2015, Russia and Iran stepped up support after the Syrian regime’s future became dicey. The assistance helped. Over the past five years, the Syrian government held onto the important eastern areas of Syria—Aleppo, Homs, and Damascus.

  The rest of the country, including Dabiq, was a petri-dish for moderate Sunnis and extremist Wahhabi-Salafi-Jihadists, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Nusra, and the Caliphate. The only tie that bound these disparate groups was their desire to see the Syrian government fall. Then, Syria could be led by a Sunni government. This was also the goal of Saudi Arabia, and to a lesser extent, Turkey.

  Wahhabism was a strain of puritanical Islam birthed in Saudi Arabia. The Salafi movement was often used synonymously with Wahhabism, but Salafists felt being called, “Wahhabi,” was derogatory. Irrespective of the terms, the broad idea was the same. Both ideologies were a fundamentalist form of Islam that called for a strict, literal interpretation of the Koran.

  While the US wanted a new Syrian government, they did not want the Syrian government to fall into the hands of the Caliphate or other Islamic extremists. Also, it was nearly impossible, as evidenced by the beheading of Charlie Shields, to determine who was a moderate and who was an extremist. Weapons meant for the moderates often ended up in the hands of the Caliphate.

  There were numerous peace talks over the last five years to discuss Syria. No-fly zones were implemented. Ceasefires would be announced and then broken. Territory would be lost, retaken, and lost again. It was a stalemate.

  It would remain a stalemate until new, more inclusive governments were installed in Syria and Iraq—governments that protected Sunni and Shia alike. The only other alternative was to divide Syria and Iraq into pieces, administered by the various factions. Or, start a major ground war in the region.

  So the President punted for four years.

  Aside from the stepped up bombing of Iraq, movement of special operations units from Syria to Iraq, and the establishment of some hard-to-police safe zones; the most meaningful action the President took was giving General Shields his fifth star. POTUS bestowed this honor when he approved Shields for DIRNSA.

  This hugely symbolic act was meant to signify that the nation was on war-footing. The symbolism was not matched with concrete actions. This was a very different war than WWII or Korea. This was an asymmetric intelligence war. The bad guys didn’t wear uniforms.

  However, there was an election in four months. Punting was now hurting the President. POTUS’ opponent was lambasting the Administration’s Caliphate strategy as weak and ineffective. He continually reminded the American public of POTUS’ campaign promises. The most damaging issue for POTUS was the 2019 rebuke of the US by Iraq. Iraq’s replacement of US forces with Russians and Iranians embarrassed America.

  His challenger said there had been no retribution for the humiliating deaths of the SEALs. He argued that the Caliphate was strengthening, not getting weaker. Also, Caliphate sympathizers continued to plan and carry out an increasing number of attacks in Europe and the US.

  Additionally, while General Shields had received tremendous accolades over the last three years for minimizing terror attacks and keeping the NSA out of the news; the DCIA had become a lightning rod. There was a significant public outcry regarding collateral damage from drone strikes.

  The Caliphate ingeniously posted pictures of civilian carnage from remotely controlled attacks. Whistleblowers were also lambasting the drone program, claiming that SIM cards were not sufficient evidence for state execution. The IC referred to the lethal drone strikes as, ‘targeted killing.’ They testified that collateral damage from targeted killing was the lowest in the history of warfare. Luckily for POTUS, terrorism wasn’t the only issue of the 2020 election. In particular, voters were happy with Goodson’s handling of the economy.

  POTUS told the teleconference, “While I see the risks of going into Dabiq with a strike team to get Omar, I’m leaning towards Walt’s option. Bernie, you of all people should support this decision. You’ve been on my ass for four years to step-up attacks on the Caliphate.”

  The President detailed how the US would achieve a significant victory against the Caliphate. He was also sure that Omar would talk. The US would get needed intelligence from the house, especially since Omar was the financial brain for the Caliphate.

  POTUS noted that firing a Hellfire missile into a neighborhood would probably kill some innocent civilians. Most likely, they wouldn’t be sure that Omar was dead. Finally, if something happened to the team, there was sufficient deniability.

  The DCIA’s strike team consisted of mercenaries—hired contractors with signed NDAs. They were all heavily decorated, ex-members of the US special operations community. They were paid to look like Kurdish fighters. All of their families had also signed NDAs.

  General Shields’ blood was near the boiling point. He thought, How wantonly does the DCIA and POTUS risk American lives? Where are the DCIAs that broke the back of the Russians with HUMINT? And the President chooses to look tough now, just in time for the debates?

  General Shields made one final attempt to dissuade POTUS from the nighttime raid. “Mr. President, what if this is a trap? No one from the Caliphate has ever used A-Mail. Omar has dozens of SIM cards. We haven’t associated this SIM card with him in over 10 months?”

  It was no use. POTUS had selected his option.

  “Bernie, if Omar steps foot out of that house before the strike, we’ll take him out with a Hellfire—irrespective of the consequences. We’ve got eyes on. Otherwise, there’s too much upside for this mission. God forbid, if our team suffers losses, our stance will be that these were Kurdish fighters with American air support. We’ll only need to say that if the story gets out. There’s no CNN in Dabiq.”

  *

  The raid was to commence at 7:00 p.m. EDT—2:00 a.m. Dabiq time. After the General’s conversation with POTUS, the Marauder did chronicle video of a woman exiting the house and later returning. The women looked like Nafisa, although facial recognition was inconclusive.

  General Shields and his senior leadership gathered in the NSA Director’s Conference Room, near the General’s office suite, in Ops 2B. It’s gargantuan, circular conference table looked like Stanley Kubrick forwarded it from the set of his movie, Dr. Strangelove. Top leaders present included; Deputy DIRNSA, Director-SIGINT Directorate, and Director-NSOC.

  Oversized, flat-screen monitors surrounded the room. The real-time Marauder feed directly faced the General. The drone was switching between its night-vision and ther
mal cameras. The Marauder was flying in a surveillance pattern over Omar’s Dabiq house.

  The General thought the situation was surreal.

  A pilot, working for the CIA on an Air Force base 20 minutes from the Las Vegas strip, was using a joystick to remotely fly the Marauder. The joystick sent flight control information for the plane from Nevada, over a fiber optic line buried underneath the Atlantic Ocean to Ramstein Air Force base. Ramstein was located in Germany.

  From Ramstein, the control information was radioed into space. Finally, a satellite relayed the data to the circling Marauder. Without the fiber optic cable, there would be too much delay to fly the drone adequately.

  Soon the Marauder picked up the Black Hawk helicopter flown by two US Army pilots. The Black Hawk contained the 12 CIA contractors in Kurdish separatist garb. This was war in the twenty-first century.