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  1. #1
    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    Default Drama in the Persian Gulf (Tehran gets uppity)

    Considering what this is doing to the price per barrel of gasoline, and the potential plot twists where this could wind up down the road, a separate thread is warranted.

    The US military on Friday released a video it said shows Iran's Revolutionary Guards removing an unexploded mine from one of the oil tankers targeted in the Gulf of Oman. Tehran denied involvement, accusing the US of waging an "Iranophobic campaign".
    https://www.france24.com/en/20190614...ng-iran-attack

    Shortly after the crews of the two tankers attacked this week in the Gulf of Oman evacuated their stricken vessels, the ships that rescued them were surrounded by Iranian military boats and told to transfer the mariners into their custody, according to declassified U.S. intelligence reports obtained on Friday by CBS News.


    One of the civilian rescue ships eventually complied with the Iranian military's request. The other did not. The new details help to paint a picture of what happened Thursday in the Gulf, near the vital shipping channel of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a third of the world's oil supply passes.
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tanker-...ce-2019-06-14/

    The Japanese owner of a tanker attacked in the Gulf of Oman claimed Friday that it was struck by a flying projectile, contradicting reports by U.S. officials and the military on the source of the blast.
    "We received reports that something flew towards the ship," said Yutaka Katada, president of Kokaku Sangyo Co. at a press conference. "The place where the projectile landed was significantly higher than the water level, so we are absolutely sure that this wasn’t a torpedo. I do not think there was a time bomb or an object attached to the side of the ship."
    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/j...-used-n1017556


    Related?

    (Bloomberg) -- A group of hackers that shut down a Saudi Arabian oil and natural gas facility in 2017 is now targeting electric utilities, according to the cybersecurity company Dragos Inc.

    The group, Xenotime, has been probing utilities in the U.S. and Asia-Pacific regions since late 2018, Hanover, Maryland-based Dragos said in a blog post Friday. They’ve focused mostly on electronic control systems that manage the operations at industrial sites, Dragos said.

    U.S. officials have long warned grids are acutely vulnerable to cyber attacks. Disrupting a region’s electrical infrastructure could cause widespread chaos, triggering blackouts and crippling financial markets, transportation systems and more.
    https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/hackers-...grid-1.1273504

    Dragos has shied away from naming any country that might be behind Xenotime's attacks. Despite initial speculation that Iran was responsible for the Triton attack on Saudi Arabia, security firm FireEye in 2018 pointed to forensic links between the Petro Rabigh attack and a Moscow research institute, the Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics. If Xenotime is in fact a Russian or Russia-sponsored group, they would be far from the only Russian hackers to target the grid. The Russian hacker group known as Sandworm is believed to be responsible for attacks on Ukrainian electric utilities in 2015 and 2016 that cut power to hundreds of thousands of people, the only blackouts confirmed to have been triggered by hackers. And last year the Department of Homeland Security warned that a Russian group known as Palmetto Fusion or Dragonfly 2.0 had gained access to the actual control systems of American power utilities, bringing them much closer to causing a blackout than Xenotime has gotten thus far.
    https://www.wired.com/story/triton-h...us-power-grid/

    Stay tuned. This sounds like it's going to get stupid.
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    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    Historical backgrounder for those too young to remember the First Act.

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Mysterious attacks on oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz this week show how one of the world’s crucial chokepoints for global energy supplies can be easily targeted, 30 years after the U.S. Navy and Iran were entangled in a similarly shadowy conflict called the “Tanker War.” While the current tensions are nowhere near the damage done then, it underscores how dangerous the situation is and how explosive it can become.
    https://www.apnews.com/ceb6e7a86bf14a9a8d8ecf81c9dcc7ef
    A scrimmage in a Border Station
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    Council Member AdamG's Avatar
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    Someone's been reading up on Kraska's deniability scenario (PDF) and basic maskirovka.

    “The Department of Defense will be reluctant to retaliate until they are certain what happened and who fired on whom, and why,” he said.

    The U.S. has been beefing up naval and air power, capable of striking Iranian forces in the Persian Gulf over the last month after the White House said it had information about possible future attacks against American interests. The Pentagon would not say Thursday whether there were plans to speed the buildup.

    Nader and Cancian believe it’s possible Iranian-funded Houthi rebels, who are mired in a civil war in Yemen, may be to blame. If that’s the case, “the U.S. will not want to get involved in a shooting war over Yemen,” Cancian said.

    It will likely take days, weeks or even months for the military to go through the forensics needed to find out exactly who is behind the attack. But if it is determined to be Iran, Cancian believes the U.S. forces in the area will make quick work of Iran’s navy. “The U.S. has assets designed to take on Russia and China. Iran’s ships are very exposed. I’d expect the U.S. would be able to sink Iran’s navy in about two days.”
    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/14/us-b...-could-do.html
    A scrimmage in a Border Station
    A canter down some dark defile
    Two thousand pounds of education
    Drops to a ten-rupee jezail


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    The Independent has the DoD video, not great quality and without anything in support e.g. mapping showing the boat's onward journey.
    Link:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8958376.html
    davidbfpo

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    Previous post would not accept editing. Bellingcat adds in the NYT a commentary:https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/o...r-attacks.html
    davidbfpo

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    Default How merchant ships can keep safe in dangerous waters

    I doubt many, indeed any readers of the Forum will need this, but it may help others understand the risks and how to mitigate them. Plus there are multiple links:https://theconversation.com/gulf-of-oman-attacks-how-merchant-ships-can-keep-safe-in-dangerous-waters-118952?
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 06-21-2019 at 07:05 PM. Reason: 569v and now 788v
    davidbfpo

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    Default Turbulent Times - Brief Thoughts on the Gulf Security Situation

    A British blogger's commentary that ends with:
    This remains a complex and fast moving situation, and more events will surely follow. But, for now, it is worth trying to capture some of the bigger issues as it moves along, and in time consider the lessons and impacts more broadly. Whatever else happens, the hope must be that this ends peacefully and not with an escalation into an ever more challenging proxy war, where the new threshold of gradually accepted use of low level violence suddenly leads to an accidental escalation of something significantly more widespread by accident.
    Link:https://thinpinstripedline.blogspot....s-on-gulf.html

    An IISS commentary by an ex-diplomat that ends - nearly - with:
    Whatever the strategy of either side, it is possible that with an increased amount of tension, rhetoric and military personnel in the region a miscalculation trips both sides into uncontrolled escalation. That is a legitimate concern that surfaced with the downing of the drone. But even in the event of miscalculation, the escalation need not be automatic.
    Link:https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/...an-in-the-gulf
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 06-21-2019 at 07:57 PM. Reason: Add 2nd paragraph
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