Situation Report: Delta Force hits ISIS; B-52s deploy to Europe; U.S. commandos possibly spotted in Syria; more Ukraine fighting; China warnings; and lots more

By Paul McLeary with Adam Rawnsley

Looking at the new war. A team of U.S. Delta Force operators has captured an Islamic State leader in northern Iraq, in the first publicized U.S. special ops raid since a 200-strong”expeditionary targeting force” arrived there late last year. Defense officials leaked word of the raid late Tuesday, saying only that the ISIS leader would be held for several weeks for interrogation before being handed over the Iraqis or Kurds.

The commando force was deployed with the explicit instructions to kill or capture high-level ISIS operatives in Syria and Iraq, marking a significant expansion of the U.S. presence on the ground in the fight against the terrorist group. The capture sets up a debate over what authorities American forces have to hold detainees in Iraq, and where they hold them. As several former military and intelligence officials told FP’s Paul McLeary and Dan De Luce earlier this year, the best way to get information from detainees is to hold and interrogate them for months on end, something that may not be possible under this new arrangement.

The boss. As we noted yesterday, outgoing commander of the Special Operations Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, has been angry over Pentagon officials being too open about U.S. commando raids. Votel has been nominated to take over U.S. Central Command, and will have his nomination hearing alongside his replacement Lt. Gen. Raymond “Tony” Thomas, on March 9. Tuesday’s announcement adds a new wrinkle to the event.

Spotted. In short post for the web site Task and Purpose, veteran war photographer Sebastiano Tomada said he recently saw some western troops near the fighting in the eastern Syrian town of Shadadi, which Kurdish and Syrian rebels cleared of ISIS fighters. Entering the town alongside the rebels, Tomada said he witnessed “bunkers for airstrikes, tons of Malaysian and Indonesian passports, antidotes and test tubes for nerve gas, presence of Chechen fighters and a destroyed town.” He also said he spotted up to eight Western soldiers who spoke with American accents. “I tried talking to them but they totally avoided me,” Tomada said. “They were posted on top of a house, and I think they were in charge of calling in airstrikes. At night, they’d leave in a convoy of white Land Cruisers.”

Flyover country. In a rare move, a U.S. B-52 bomber conducted a flyover of a major NATO exercise in Norway on Tuesday. The plane is one of three B-52s that deployed to Morón, Spain last week. The U.S. Air Force says that the deployment is temporary, designed to support a series of upcoming exercises on the continent.

The exercise in Norway — dubbed Cold Response — is an annual event that has drawn in 13,000 NATO troops, which this year includes 3,000 Americans. European Command spokesman Lt. Col. David Westover emails SitRep that the event “reinforces a collective defense capability” among NATO partners. He also downplayed the B-52 deployment, saying that Moron “has a long history of supporting bomber operations.”

Moving east. Last year, head of the U.S. European Command Gen. Philip Breedlove estimated that Russia had moved about 1,000 pieces of military hardware — including tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery, into Ukraine. He told reporters at the Pentagon Tuesday that the number has since gone “well above 1,000,” although Russian activity in eastern Ukraine has actually  “decreased a little bit.” But that doesn’t mean that the fighting between government forces and Russian-backed separatists is coming to an end. In fact, recent reporting has shown that the fighting is heating up. Breedlove noted that “probably more concerning” is that the fighting is now involving heavier weapons than were previously thought to have been deployed by the separatists along the front.

Leaving the bridge. Secretary of the Navy  Ray Mabus told a Congressional panel Tuesday that he plans to retire within the next year, after nearly eight years in office. Mabus, 67, has held the job since May 2009 — serving under four different defense secretaries.

Naming names. Last week, FP’s John Hudson revealed that presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders had started building a foreign policy team, headed by Bill French, a policy analyst at the National Security Network. Now we can add some new names to the list. The campaign has also tapped Larry Korb of the Center for American Progress and Joe Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund, along with FP contributor Gordon Adams of American University, who will advise Sanders on defense policy.

Top Tweet: You have to see this armored vehicle built by the Libyan army to believe it: RT @Joseph Dempsey  Another unique improvised armoured vehicle courtesy of the #Libya National Army #Benghazi

Thanks for clicking on through for another edition of SitRep. As always, if you have any thoughts, announcements, tips, or national security-related events to share, please pass them along to SitRep HQ! Best way is to send them to: paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or on Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

Syria

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has charged the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad with using chlorine gas against civilians in Syria since the start of the cessation of hostilities, Reuters reports. Chlorine gas use is by no means a new phenomenon in the Syrian civil war, as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Warfare reported that its use in the conflict had been “systemic,” with the regime dropping barrel bombs loaded with the gas on civilian areas.

Top U.S. officer in Europe Gen. Philip Breedlove told Congress on Tuesday that Russia and the Assad regime are “weaponizing” refugees from Syria in order to browbeat Europe into acquiescing to the Assad regime’s continued existence. Breedlove said the air campaigns by Syria and Russia are deliberately targeting civilians in order to create more refugee flows into Europe, overwhelming the immigration systems there and creating political unrest. The general also asked legislators to approve a request for $3.4 billion European Reassurance Initiative aimed at buttressing deterrence against further Russian aggression in Eastern Europe.

Tunisia

Tunisia is about to host foreign troops from Britain and Germany in order help it and its neighbor, Libya, in the fight against the Islamic State. British Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon said earlier this week that Britain will send a small 20-person team to train Tunisian security forces  in order to prevent the infiltration of Islamic State terrorists from neighboring Libya. Tunisia has already built a wall along its border with Libya. Reuters also reports that Tunisian Defense Minister Farhat Harchani has agreed to host a German training program for Libyan forces on Tunisian soil aimed at improving Libya’s capabilities against the jihadist group.

Now you see me…

The often forgotten art of electronic warfare is making a comeback and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is looking to use artificial intelligence in order to make it smarter. DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar testified before Congress last week that the big brains in her shop are hoping artificial intelligence can help jamming equipment on aircraft learn and adapt in real time to new radar frequencies aimed at them and develop new jamming profiles in order to counter the systems. Right now, jammers only function based off a static database of profiles pre-loaded onto jamming equipment.

Hezbollah

The political battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran is heating up with Lebanon emerging as the latest battleground for influence between the two Gulf sectarian rivals. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), composed of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, officially designated Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah as a terrorist group, alleging that the group is seeking to carry out terrorist attacks in GCC countries and seeking to destabilize Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. The designation comes on the heels of Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut billions in military aid for the Lebanese defense ministry in retaliation for the Lebanese foreign ministry’s failure to condemn attacks against the Saudi embassy in Iran in January.

Russia

Russia wants a new chemical weapons treaty to counter the use of the weapons by groups like the Islamic State. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that terrorist use of chemical weapons was a “grave reality of our time” and represented an “extremely urgent” threat. Lavrov suggested that Conference on Disarmament forum, responsible for negotiating the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, could take on responsibility for arranging the new agreement.

While there are a handful of B-52s in Europe, it looks like it’ll be another half-decade before Washington’s massively hyped — and massively expensive — F-35 fighter plane manages to deploy to the continent. U.S. Air Force Gen. Frank Gorenc, head of US Air Forces in Europe, said that he also doesn’t expect much in the way of the Pentagon’s other big-ticket new acquisition, the F-22, any time soon. “I would love to have both the F-22 and the F-35 in Europe,” he said, But there are no plans for that other than temporary small deployments of the F-22 on a rotational basis. The general also blasted Russia during his sitdown with Defense News, saying Moscow “continues to operate outside of the international world order.”

China

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter notched up the rhetoric on China’s “militarization” of the South China Sea, warning that “specific actions will have specific consequences,” if it continues down the path of militarizing the region. Asked to flesh out the “or else” aspect of his statement, Carter pointed to the nearly half billion dollars the U.S. was planning to spend on joint exercises around the South China Sea as well as $8 billion in planned spending on submarines and undersea drones.

Awards

Almost one out of five medals awarded since 9/11 have been issued for actions undertaken on classified missions, according to an investigation by USA Today. The awards highlight the growth of secrecy since the War on Terror first began and the rise of special ops forces as an in-demand tool for commanders. According to the paper, awards as high as an Army Distinguished Service Cross and three Navy Crosses — the second highest awards short of the Medal of Honor — have been handed out for classified operations.

Global instability

The Fund for Peace’s 2015 Fragile States Index, which maps countries according to their instability and threat to global peace, is out. The index weights countries based on a basket of economic, political, and security factors. Topping this year’s list in order of most fragile are South Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, and Sudan. Outside of Africa, Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan also ranked among the most fragile countries this year. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Scandinavian countries, including Finland, Sweden and Norway, ranked among the most stable countries.

And finally…

Robotic Big Dog vs. angry meat dog.

“This. Is. Pendleton!” Gerard Butler practices his Sparta kick, a la the movie 300, against U.S. Marines during visit to Camp Pendleton.

Correction, March 2, 2016: DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar is a woman. A previous version of this article referred to her by the incorrect pronoun.