Cyberstrike, James Barrington [short story to read .TXT] 📗

of the newest units in the military, the JSFAW was only created in April 2001 as a somewhat unlikely marriage of 7 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, flying Chinook HC2 heavy-lift helicopters, and 658 Squadron of the Army Air Corps, which operates the much smaller Eurocopter AS365N3 Dauphin II. The latter aircraft is often referred to by the British press as ‘Blue Thunder’, presumably on the reasonable if rather dull grounds that it’s painted blue and makes a lot of noise.

A front-line helicopter base and specifically the home base of the British Chinook force, RAF Odiham at Hook in Hampshire, not far from Basingstoke, is home to 7 Squadron RAF of the JSFAW while 658 Squadron AAC is based at Stirling Lines, home of the Special Air Service (SAS) at Credenhill, near Hereford.

The JSFAW is nothing if not flexible, certainly in terms of what it comprises, with at least two sub-units no longer a part of it. 657 Squadron AAC was a part of the JSFAW, flying Lynx AH9A helicopters and based at RAF Odiham until the squadron was disbanded in 2018, while 651 Squadron AAC was based at Aldergrove in Northern Ireland at the Joint Helicopter Command Flying Station and originally operated Lynx and Apache helicopters before being disbanded in 2003. Three years later it was reformed as a part of the JSFAW, flying Defender AL1 and AL2 fixed-wing turboprop aircraft, better known in civilian commercial use as the Britten Norman BN-2T-4S Defender 4000, originally the Britten Norman Islander.

But although 651 Squadron is still operational, it’s no longer a part of the JSFAW. The squadron’s function was to provide UK special forces in Iraq and Afghanistan with ISTAR, meaning Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance. In Iraq the squadron was based at Al Amara, and in Afghanistan at Basra, and in both countries it was primarily involved in detecting and monitoring movements by insurgent groups. In Iraq, it also provided ISTAR support to the SAS Task Force Black, and more recently supplied airborne surveillance over East London during the Olympic Games in 2012.

Hawala

The hawala value transfer concept arose in India as early as the eighth century and differs from all modern financial systems in that funds are not physically transferred from the sender to the recipient. Instead, the sender deposits a sum with a hawaladar together with a password or other means of verification and another hawaladar in the destination city is informed about the transaction. The recipient approaches that hawaladar, provides the necessary verification and is given the agreed sum less a small commission.

But the funds are never actually transferred during the transaction: the system is based upon, and relies totally on, honour and the belief that the debt owed by the sending hawaladar will be repaid. In practice, each hawaladar maintains careful records of all transactions and the settlement of debts may not necessarily take the form of cash but can involve the provision of services, the supply of goods or other options.

Allāhu akbar

This Arabic expression is known as the Takbir, meaning the ‘magnification of God’, and it translates into English as ‘God is great’. It’s a very common expression used on a daily basis by Muslims in a wide variety of different contexts, including within the calls to prayer uttered by the muezzin – the adhān – as well as in normal conversation to express feelings or emotions like happiness or sadness, or just as a simple statement of faith.

It is one of the most used and religiously significant expressions in Islam, and not just as part of a spoken language. The expression Allāhu akbar can be found in the middle of the Iraqi flag, repeated multiple times on the flag of Iran and, since 2004, on the flag of Afghanistan as well. It has also been used as a battle-cry during conflict and more recently during terrorist attacks.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division

In October 1991 building work began on a nearly one thousand acre site in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The client was the FBI, and in July 1995 the structure was completed both on time and under budget – somewhat strangely for a government contract of any sort. The main building occupies half a million square feet and includes a cafeteria with seating for 600 people, an auditorium with seats for 500 and a computer centre that extends to some 100,000 square feet.

This was designed to be the home of the Criminal Justice Information Services Division, a high-technology arm of the FBI. Numerous technology-based programmes were either incorporated within it at its inception or were later transferred to it. These included IAFIS (Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System), NCIC (National Crime Information Centre), NIBRS (National Incident-Based Reporting System) and UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting).

FACE (the Facial Analysis, Comparison and Evaluation Services Unit) is also based there. The database available through FACE is vast: it comprises over 400 million images culled from numerous sources and including almost 200 million photos from driving licences and ID pictures, nearly 150 million visa photos and, inevitably, over 25 million police mug shots.

Task Force Black

The defeat of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship was a beginning rather than an end for covert operations in Iraq. Although Hussein was about the only leader who’d managed to keep al-Qaeda out of his country while he was in power, after the campaign ended the terrorist organisation moved in. Fighting a group like al-Qaeda is akin to fighting smoke: the enemy is insubstantial and elusive, and it was recognised that using conventional military forces and tactics wasn’t going to be enough.

Accordingly, in 2003 a squadron from the SAS was sent out to join a combined US/UK force to conduct operations against senior figures in al-Qaeda. Originally called Task Force 145 (TF-145), it was briefly renamed Task Force Knight and later TF-88. It included Task Force Black, a Sabre squadron from the SAS that was rotated every six months, supported by Task Force Maroon, a company from the Special