Tuesday, August 5, 2014

#2059: Marine Links Serco Red Switch to Taitlek Tunnel Vision, U.S. General Contract Hit

Plum City – (AbelDanger.net): United States Marine Field McConnell has linked Serco’s use of the Defense Red Switch Network to support ‘tunneling’ attacks on the U.S. government by Serco's SBA protégé companies such as Taitlek, to the alleged contract hit (killing) of a two-star American general in Afghanistan at Camp Qargha known as “Sandhurst in the sand” after the UK MoD outsourced the building of the officer school and its training program to Serco.


“American general killed during ‘insider’ attack on Afghanistan base
Rahim Faiez And Amir Shah, Associated Press | August 5, 2014 10:51 AM ET More from Associated Press
A man dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire Tuesday on foreign troops at a military base, causing casualties, an Afghan military spokesman said.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A man dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire Tuesday on foreign troops at a military base, reportedly killing a two-star American general and wounding 15 people, among them a German brigadier general and “about a dozen” Americans, authorities said.

Details about the attack at Camp Qargha, a base west of the capital, Kabul, weren’t immediately clear. Gen. Mohammmad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry, said a “terrorist in an army uniform” opened fire on both local and international troops. Azimi said the shooter had been killed and that three Afghan army officers were wounded.

A U.S. official said one American soldier was killed and “about a dozen” of the wounded were Americans, but declined to comment further. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss details of the attack by name on the record.

Related

Germany’s military said 15 NATO soldiers were wounded in an assault launched “probably by internal attackers.” The wounded included a German brigadier general, who the German military said was receiving medical treatment and was “not in a life-threatening condition.”

NATO said it was investigating the attack, which Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned as “cowardly.”

It is “an act by the enemies who don’t want to see Afghanistan have strong institutions,” Karzai said in a statement.

Qargha is known as “Sandhurst in the sand”— referring to the famed British military academy — as British forces oversaw building the officer school and its training program. In a statement, the British Defence Ministry said it was investigating the incident and that “it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”

After the shooting, a soldier in a NATO convoy leaving Camp Qargha fired his pistol in an apparent warning shot in the vicinity of Associated Press journalists and pedestrians nearby. No one was wounded.

The Qargha shooting comes as so-called “insider attacks” — incidents in which Afghan security turn on their NATO partners — largely dropped last year. In 2013, there were 16 deaths in 10 separate attacks. In 2012, such attacks killed 53 coalition troops in 38 separate attacks.

Such “insider attacks” are sometimes claimed by the Taliban insurgency as proof of their infiltration. Others are attributed to personal disputes or resentment by Afghans who have soured on the continued international presence in their country more than a dozen years after the fall of the Taliban’s ultra-conservative Islamic regime.

Foreign aid workers, contractors and other civilians in Afghanistan are increasingly becoming targets of violence as the U.S.-led military coalition continues a withdrawal to be complete by the end of the year.

In eastern Paktia province, an Afghan police guard also exchanged fire Tuesday with NATO troops near the governor’s office, provincial police chief Gen. Zelmia Oryakhail said. The guard was killed in the gunfight, he said. It wasn’t clear if the two incidents were linked and police said they were investigating the incident.

Meanwhile Tuesday, a NATO helicopter strike targeting missile-launching Taliban militants killed four civilians in western Afghanistan, an Afghan official said Tuesday. NATO said they were investigating the attack.

The attack in western Herat province comes as civilian casualties from NATO attacks remain a contentious issue across the country. Almost 200 people protested against NATO in Herat on Tuesday, carrying the bodies of the dead civilians into the provincial capital and demanding an investigation. In a statement, NATO said it was aware of the attack and was investigating, without elaborating. A man dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire Tuesday on foreign troops at a military base, causing casualties, an Afghan military spokesman said. In a statement NATO said it was investigating an "incident" involving both Afghan and international troops at Camp Qargha which trains officers for the country's army.

Civilians increasingly find themselves under fire as the 2001 U.S.-led war draws to a close, as Afghan forces take the lead in operations targeting the Taliban. The civilian death toll in the war in Afghanistan rose 17 per cent for the first half of this year, the United Nations reported in July. The U.N. said 1,564 civilians were killed from January through June, compared with 1,342 in the first six months of 2013.

Insurgents were responsible for 74 per cent of the casualties, the U.N. said, while pro-government forces were responsible for 9 per cent, government forces 8 per cent and foreign troops just 1 per cent. The rest could not be attributed to any group.

Karzai has repeatedly clashed with NATO over civilian casualties and strongly condemned the helicopter attack Tuesday.

Afghan security forces also increasingly find themselves under attack as the planned foreign troop withdrawal draws near. On Tuesday, a police car struck a roadside bomb in the eastern province of Nouristan, killing three officers, provincial police chief Abdul Baqi Nouristani said. Two other roadside bombs in northern Sari Pul province killed three people, including a district police chief and his driver, deputy provincial police chief Sakhi Dad Haidary said.”

“Serco Our vision for providing COEFOR Support
Serco fully understands that pre-deployment training for the Army needs to be holistic. Furthermore we recognise that the operational environment in Afghanistan is changing, and will continue to change, so the training requirement will, by necessity, need to change to meet this. Therefore we recognize that the Authority will require a flexible solution and partner to achieve this.

We deliver a smooth migration to a world-leading collective training capability at the Land Warfare Centre (LWC).

We fully understand that the training needs to be wholly holistic, that immerses the soldiers in a realistic and embracing cultural environment so that they can learn to adapt their well practiced Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) within a realistic representation of their upcoming operational surroundings.

Our solution delivers a development, design and planning team that will support the strategy to deliver best in class training in support of the changing nature of the operations. We will provide an intelligence analyst, researchers and business analysts.

Our vision is that we will not only articulate operational concepts through delivering credible and effective training but also build a business plan that measures effect and proposes an investment strategy for collective training in the long term.

A formal process of engagement with key leaders in Afghanistan and the US Marines (delivered by Serco North America Division and Tatitlek) so the ideas and innovations in training operations can be shared. Our vision is for cooperative training events where we can share information on innovation, use of role players and feedback on training effectiveness.”

“Company Name: Tatitlek Training Services, Inc.
Existing SeaPort-e Prime: Yes
Address: 561 East 36th
City: Anchorage
State: AK 9 digit ZIP: 99503
CAGE Code: 4MEL9
DUNS Number: 789379406
EPOC First Name: Carolyn
EPOC Last Name: Jackson
EPOC Phone Number: 571-255-7867
EPOC Email: cjackson@tatitlek.com Alternate POC:
EPOC First Name: Don
EPOC Last Name: Bilodeau
EPOC Phone Number: 540-424-8110 EPOC Email: dbilodeau@tatitlek.com
Business Size: SBA Certified 8(a) Small Disadvantaged Business

Technical Capability:

Tatitlek offers full life-cycle support to the Integrated Warfare Systems Laboratory in Dahlgren, VA., with operations and maintenance personnel providing tactical support for three shifts, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, and 365 days per year. Contract tasking encompasses Systems Engineering Services, which include tactical operations, requirements identification, change control, acquisition & logistics, operations and maintenance, facility activation support, CAD and cable fabrication.

Facility services include network operations support, system administration, information assurance, data management, data storage and disaster recovery. Tatitlek provides necessary support for all facilities at the Integrated Warfare Systems Lab (IWSL) and the Integrated Combat System Test Facility.

Tatitlek personnel at the NSWCDD Sites Planning Agent (Code W63 and SEA 21) provides technical support in the areas of systems engineering, information management, information technology, database management, status accounting, and documentation generation and maintenance relative to land based test site planning and engineering processes.

Functional Support is provided in four major areas:
Technical Support
Developer/DBA Support
Acquisition/Logistics Support
Activation Support”

“Virtual private network technology is based on the idea of tunneling. VPN tunneling involves establishing and maintaining a logical network connection (that may contain intermediate hops). On this connection, packets constructed in a specific VPN protocol format are encapsulated within some other base or carrier protocol, then transmitted between VPN client and server, and finally de-encapsulated on the receiving side. For Internet-based VPNs, packets in one of several VPN protocols are encapsulated within Internet Protocol (IP) packets. VPN protocols also support authentication and encryption to keep the tunnels secure.”

“Building a State-of-the-Practice Data Communications Network To create a state-of-the-practice data communications network required Serco to engineer different solutions for each of the AFSCN’s unique locations. Each ground station around the world had to be surveyed in order to develop detailed installation plans, project support agreements and testing plans. Furthermore, to assure communications reliability between the ground station and the operational control nodes, Serco also had to conduct a complete circuit testing exercise. …

In developing this enhanced voice and data communications network, Serco’s team engineered and implemented an ATM backbone and secure voice system for each of the AFSCN ground stations. The installed network was based on a Wide Area Network (WAN) architecture utilizing IP based network capabilities and proprietary secure communication technologies such as KG-75s, KG-84S and KIV-7s. In addition, Serco ensured Defense Red Switch Network connectivity and operations throughout the AFSCN”

Yours sincerely,


Field McConnell, United States Naval Academy, 1971; Forensic Economist; 30 year airline and 22 year military pilot; 23,000 hours of safety; Tel: 715 307 8222

David Hawkins Tel: 604 542-0891 Forensic Economist; former leader of oil-well blow-out teams; now sponsors Grand Juries in CSI Crime and Safety Investigation

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Looking into our circumstances...