MS Risk Blog

Ugandan Police End House Arrest of Opposition Leader After Election Results are Confirmed By Top Court

On Friday 1 April, Ugandan police ended a six-week-long house arrest of an opposition leader that was imposed after he claimed that recent presidential elections were rigged.

Second-placed Kizza Besigye, who rejected the results of the 18 February election won by veteran President Yoweri Museveni, has been forcibly kept inside his home in the capital Kampala for 43 days. He has said that his detention was designed in order to block him from gathering evidence of fraud in what he called a “scandalous” election. On Friday, Ugandan police chief Kale Kayihura stated that he has “…given directive that the deployment of police outside Besigye’s home be withdrawn forthwith.”

While the police chief provided no explanation why the house arrest was being lifted, it comes just a day after the country’s Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge to the election result and upheld Museveni’s fifth-term victory. With Besigye unable to submit a legal challenge, third-placed Amama Mbabazi, a former prime minister who won just over one percent of the vote, filed the suit that was rejected in court on 31 March.

Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, was declared the winner with 61 percent of the vote. He has rejected claims that his victory was won through cheating and fraud. A long-standing opponent of the president, Besigye has been frequently jailed, accused of both treason and rape, teargased and hospitalized over the years, however this was the longest period he had ever been under house arrest. On Friday, Kayihura warned that “we expect Besigye to respect the law, to stop causing trouble for people going about their private businesses,” adding, “ He must respect the law. If he veers off, the police is there to protect people and their property.”

Concerns with increased violence in Northern Ireland with centennial of the Easter Rising

During the month of March authorities in Northern Ireland has been on higher alert than normal, concerned that the 100^th anniversary of the Irish uprising against British rule would cause numerous attacks throughout the country. Security has been tightened and police presence beefed up in many places. Authorities are concerned that splinter groups from what was once the Irish Republican Army will target police, prison officers and soldiers. Concerns were particularly raised after a car bomb incident early in March led to the death of 52-year old prison officer Adrian Ismay. Soon after the car bomb attack the Police Service of Northern Ireland deemed the threat from dissidents to be severe, meaning that an attack is highly possible. The New Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for the bombing incident, which was apparently targeting officer Ismay for his part in training officers working at the Maghaberry Prison where several republican revolutionaries are currently being held. In the weeks leading up to, and following, the attack of prison officer Ismay police patrols were increased across the country.

To understand the current situation perhaps it is helpful to consider the recent history. A 28-year long conflict known as “The Troubles,” in which nearly 3,600 people died, came to an end with the Good Friday accord in April of 1998, following a truce reached in 1997. The conflict was between pro-British Protestants and Catholics who favoured reclaiming Northern Ireland from British control and unifying it with the republic of Ireland. With the peace agreement the IRA split up, which led to the creation of fractions, some of them opposing the Good Friday agreement and considering it a betrayal of the revolutionary spirit. This historic conflict seems to be causing feeling of resentment still today. The New IRA is the latest iteration of the Provisional IRA (PIRA). With the Good Friday accord a disarming of the PIRA was planned. A significant portion of the PIRA disagreed with the disarmament, which has led to yet more splinter groups attempting to take the IRA mantle. One of the splinter groups is the Continuity IRA (CIRA) which broke off in 1986, and is responsible for a high-profile shooting at a boxing weigh-in in Dublin on 5 February of this year.

It is no wonder some have raised concerns about a potential increase in violence as it is still fresh in memory of many, that when the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising took place in 1966, Northern Ireland saw an increase in violence which only three years later resulted in the start of “the Troubles”. According to one of the former PIRA prisoners a new all-Ireland network has been formed for republicans, which promotes a unification and regard the Good Friday accord as a sell-out. The continued presence of the republican revolutionary spirit was evident on Easter Eve, 26 March, when a parade in a Northern Ireland town was headed by masked men, dressed in paramilitary uniforms, reportedly linked to the CIRA. The CIRA is typically one of the fractions that opposes the political settlement in Northern Ireland, in which political party Sinn Féin shares power with unionists. As Easter weekend has come to an end we are left to wonder if the authorities of Northern Ireland can relax their tightened security and return to a threat alert closer to normality, or if the rest of the year 2016 will indeed be characterised by worry and concerns about more upcoming attacks targeting people of the authorities in protest or to mark the centennial of the rising.

WHO Declares Ebola Outbreak No Longer International Emergency

On 29 March, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa no longer constitutes an international emergency as officials voiced confidence that remaining isolated cases in the affected countries can be contained.

Speaking to journalists, WHO chief Margaret Chan stated that “the Ebola outbreak in West Africa no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern,” officially ending the emergency, which was first declared in August 2014. While the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has ended, officials have warned that flare-ups are likely to continue, with Chan stressing on Tuesday that all three previously affected countries – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – remain vulnerable to these flare-ups, including an ongoing cluster of cases reported in Guinea, which has left five people dead. Last week, health officials in Conakry reported that 961 people who may have come into contact with the victims in the southern region of the country were being monitored. Chan also warned against complacency towards the virus, which remains in “the ecosystem” in West Africa, adding that vigilance is crucial, including reacting quickly to new cases. She noted that “particularly important will be to ensure that communities can rapidly and fully engage in any future response, cases are quickly isolated and managed.”

The deadliest-ever outbreak of the tropical disease emerged in December 2013, and since then it has killed more than 11,300 people mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. At its peak in 2014, the Ebola outbreak sparked anxiety about a possible global pandemic and led some governments to threaten or unilaterally enforce travel bans to and from the worst-affected countries. The WHO consistently pushed back against such calls, with Chan again on Tuesday reiterating that “there should be no restrictions on travel and trade with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and that any such measures should be lifted immediately.” In the wake of the recent cluster of cases reported in southern Guinea, Liberia has closed its border with the country until further notice.

During the outbreak, the United Nation’s public health agency faced criticism over its initial response to the spread of Ebola, including accusations that it took far too long in order to publicise the threat level. In May 2015, the growing criticism forced the WHO to launch a sweeping shake-up of its emergency response systems. These efforts were seen this year, when the WHO was quick to sound the alarm in response to the rapid spread of the Zika virus.

Ghana Raises Terror Alert

In the wake of the 13 March deadly terror attack in neighbouring Ivory Coast, Ghana’s government has put the nation on high alert. The terror alert is a first for the West African country.

On 16 March, Ghana’s national security chiefs disclosed that they have intelligence of a credible terrorist threat in the country. The announcement was made on Wednesday following a meeting with Ghana’s President John Mahama to review their readiness. In a statement, the government called on Ghanaians to pay attention and report anything unusual to security agencies.

The alert comes as the United Kingdom has also advised its citizens in Ghana to be cautious. The United States has also restricted US service members’ travel to five West African countries, citing recent militant attacks in the region. On 16 March, the Pentagon issued the move, which effectively limits unofficial travel by US military personnel to Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Ghana. US Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Baldanza, a Pentagon spokeswoman, has disclosed that the order will remain in effect until 30 June and does not restrict official travel to the countries involved, adding, “given the recent attacks in Western Africa, we felt it prudent to make this decision at this time in an effort to ensure the safety of our personnel.” According to Navy Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Falvo, a spokesman for US Africa Command, “its just vigilance given the recent events that have happened in the area of the world.” US Africa Command has between 1,000 and 1,2000 forces on the continent at any one time, mostly in training and support roles to help local security forces combat militants.

Since November 2015, al-Qaeda militants have attacked hotels in two other regional capitals, Bamako (Mali) and Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), and a beach resort located outside Abidjan (Ivory Coast).

China’s Offensive Cyber Warfare

Hacking is has been a rising trend within the PRC since the Internet entered the country in 1994 and on November 8^th 2012 the Chinese president officially announced, “China will speed up full military IT applications”. China alone accounts for the largest national population of Internet users—some 300 million, nearly one-fifth of the global number. Ever since the 90’s, creation of a lot of hacking groups: The Green Corps, The Hong Kong Blonds and the most famous recent one: the Red Honker Union They created an important hacking culture in China. Some evidences link civilian hackers to the government and the States’ creation of a cyber army. Since 1998, according to Timothy Thomas of the U.S Foreign Military Studies Office, the Chinese army has even recruited civilians into its ‘net militia units’ (Militia Information Technology Battalions), the most famous being the unit 61398.

The State cyber army: unit 61398

As everything on the Internet, it is always difficult to prove the origin of a cyber attack. Nevertheless, the company Mandiant has investigated since 2004 the cyber capacity of China, especially through the unit 61398 considered as a part of the Communist Party of China under the Central Military Commission in the GSD 3^rd department (2^nd Bureau). Since 2006, a rising number of cyber attacks are believed to have come from this unit and most of them targeted the U.S.

The four most important sectors attacked are: Information Technology, Transportation, High-Tech Electronics and Financial Services. China seems to base its cyber warfare on a method often referred as “Acupuncture warfare”: based on attacking critical IT nodes or pressure points, this method capitalizes on optimizing effects on adversary vulnerabilities and follows the principle of acupuncture practiced for medicine—identifying points that serve as “a tunnel, or access route, to the deeper circulatory channels within”. One application of this theory would be finding the key choke points or supply chain vulnerabilities for an enemy military deployments and influencing them by attacking the supporting civilian infrastructure.

Intents and motivation of the cyber attacks

The first reason for China’s cyber offensive is to gain increased military knowledge through cyber espionage: China also has an interest in accelerating its military development since it is still behind the West, especially the U.S. who often has the lead for new military technology. Different cyber attacks can be quoted as examples, the most famous being the “Titain Rain” in 2007: a massive cyber attack against United States defence contractor computer networks (10 to 20 terabytes including Lockheed Martin and NASA) believed to come from China. Furthermore, numerous attackers originating in China have been accused of infiltrating government computers of numerous countries: the United States, Britain, France, Germany, South Korea, and Taiwan.

A second motivation is to make economic gains by stealing technological process. China’s general technological level is also behind that of the United States, which gives it an increased incentive for industrial espionage in order to achieve economic advantage. Numerous attacks believed to come from China supported this theory: the theft of data from U.S. network security company RSA Security in 2011. Moreover, in December 2007, the director-general of the British Security Service (MI5) informed 300 major UK companies that they were under constant attack from “Chinese state organisations”.

One of the last reasons for China to use cyber offensive is to deter other States by infiltrating their critical infrastructure. It puts the other States on notice that any technological edge it believes it enjoys will not be functional in a conflict with China. It also reminds China’s restive domestic audience that unfettered technological advancement alone does not bring security. Deterrence and possible military actions for this reason could be launching probes to identify vulnerabilities that could be exploited in armed conflict. Two main examples of this reason is Operation Aurora in 2009 where the U.S company Google’s source code has been stolen along with the attack of Denial of service on the White House website in 1999 after the U.S attacked the Chinese Embassy.

The characteristics of cyber warfare

• Anonymous: China has an interest in avoiding exposure to political and military pressure from the West and the United States. Chinese embassy representative Geng Shuang maintains that the allegations against China are groundless, stating: “The Chinese government prohibits online criminal offenses of all forms, including cyber attacks, and has done what it can to combat such activities in accordance with Chinese law.” The Chinese Defense Ministry in January 2013 stated, “It is unprofessional and groundless to accuse the Chinese military of launching cyber attacks without any conclusive evidence.” Here lies a paradox with one of China’s reason for cyber offensive: anonymity prevent from any possible deterrence: China has to find the equilibrium between anonymous to avoid exposure and famous to create deterrence.
• Cheap: cyber weapons are cheap to build and to use.
• Diverse: cyber weapons can target multiple types of system.
• Timeframe: cyber weapons can act quickly and against multiple targets at the same time.
• Flexible: unlike nukes, a virus or any type of cyber weapon can be used multiple times.

China’s offensive cyber: information warfare

Fitting in the Sun Tzu’s spirit of the need of information, China focus on cyber capabilities as part of its strategy of national asymmetric warfare. The Chinese military and their civilian oversees have hit upon a military strategy that aims all at once to close the gap between U.S. and Chinese technological-military prowess. Hence, China considers the cyber domain to be a battle arena.