Syrian jets pound Islamic State-held areas for second day
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- Syrian jets pound Islamic State-held areas for second day
- South China Sea: US and China have escalating war of words over territory dispute - Asia - World
- Cyber Hacking Looms Over Xi’s US Visit
- Kremlin Hit by Cyber Attacks
- ‘Black Mass’ charts Whitey Bulger’s FBI-approved crime spree
- Sweden in secret talks to join ‘elite’ Nato unit
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian army jets carried out at least 25 air strikes on the Islamic State-held city of Palmyra on Friday, a group monitoring the war said, the second intense bombardment of territory held by the militants in two days.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was one of the most sustained government bombardments on Palmyra. It came a day after Syrian jets heavily bombed Islamic State’s bastion in the north, the city of Raqqa.
Palmyra, in central Syris and home to vast Roman-era ruins, was seized by Islamic State insurgents from government forces in May.
(Writing by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
By Associated Press September 18 at 8:39 AM
BEIRUT — Activists say Syrian warplanes are pounding the Islamic State-held town of Palmyra in central Syria, killing at least 15 people in a series of airstrikes.
They say Friday’s airstrikes are some of the heaviest since the extremist group seized the ancient town May 10.
The Palmyra airstrikes come a day after the Syrian army carried out heavy air raids in the northern city of Raqqa, also held by the Islamic State group.
The Syrian government says it is the leading force fighting IS in Syria. Russia, a key ally of President Bashar Assad, is trying to convince the West of the need to work with Syria in the fight against IS.
A local activist who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons reported around 30 airstrikes on Palmyra Friday.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 16, 2015 5:39PM
The Syrian army, backed by fighters from the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, has liberated more areas in the flashpoint
border town of Zabadani.
border town of Zabadani.
Syria's official news agency SANA said Tuesday that the joint forces managed to take control of a number of buildings in several neighborhoods southeast of Zabadani, which is located about 47 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of the capital, Damascus.
) northwest of the capital, Damascus.
Militant hideouts in the neighborhoods of Ein al-Himma, al-Maidani, al-Kubra, and al-Adaima were targeted in the latest offensive.
The joint forces also managed to destroy several weapons depots belonging to the militants in the town.
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The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group which is affiliated to the foreign-backed Syria opposition groups, says government forces have already retaken more than 70 percent of Zabadani. Syria says, however, that the operation to retake the town is nearly done, with only pockets of militants remaining in an area of one square kilometer in the center of the town.
Zabadani had been a major stronghold of militant groups over the past few years. The army's complete recapture of the town would entirely cut off the supply lines used by the militants for transferring ammunition and forces into areas near Damascus, while it also secures the highway connecting the Syrian capital to Beirut in Lebanon.
In Aleppo, shelling goes on; Homs sees another car bombing
The news of the latest advances in Zabadani comes as elsewhere in the northwestern city of Aleppo, which lies near the Turkish border and has been one of the major spots of the conflict over the past four years, civilian casualties were reported due to shelling by militants at residential buildings in the city.
of the latest advances in Zabadani comes as elsewhere in the northwestern city of Aleppo, which lies near the Turkish border and has been one of the major spots of the conflict over the past four years, civilian casualties were reported due to shelling by militants at residential buildings in the city.
In the western city of Homs, a car bomb attack was reported. Eight people were injured in the bombing that was carried out near a school.
bomb attack was reported. Eight people were injured in the bombing that was carried out near a school.
Plagued by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011, Syria has been fighting terror that has claimed the lives of nearly 250,000 people already.
In addition to the fatalities, millions more have also been forced from their homes by the conflict.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, at the meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2015. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday strongly defended Moscow’s military assistance to the Syrian government, saying it’s impossible to defeat the Islamic State group without cooperating with the Syrian government. (Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA-Novosti, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) (Associated Press)
By Associated Press September 18 at 9:19 AM
MOSCOW — Russia would consider sending troops to fight in Syria if Damascus asked for them, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said Friday.
Dmitry Peskov spoke in response to comments by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, who denied reports that Russian combat troops were fighting with Syrian troops, but said Syria would ask for Russia’s help if needed.
If such a request is made, it will be “discussed and considered,” Peskov said.
Al-Moallem, speaking in an interview on Syrian television late Thursday, said for now the Syrian army was capable of fighting on its own and what it needed from Russia was more ammunition and better weapons. He said Russia has “stepped up the pace” of those deliveries.
The United States has expressed concern about the ongoing Russian military buildup in Syria, which it believes is aimed at propping up Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Russia has called for a broad coalition to fight the Islamic State group, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday urged Washington and its allies to engage the Syrian government as a “partner” in this fight.
Russia sees the Islamic State group as posing a direct threat to its own security because of the high number of Russian citizens who have joined the terror group. The concern is that after gaining experience in Syria and Iraq, some could return to carry out attacks on Russian territory.
On Friday, Gen. Sergei Smirnov, deputy chief of the FSB intelligence agency, said Russia now has information that 2,400 Russian nationals have joined the Islamic State. That is considerably higher than the estimate of 1,700 that Smirnov gave in April.
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Albert Aji in Damascus contributed to this report.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is considering scrapping its effort to create a large-scale Syrian force to fight Islamic State as it searches for alternatives to prevent the American-led effort from collapsing, officials said.
Under one proposal being crafted at the Pentagon, the $500 million train-and-equip program—a core component of the U.S. Syria strategy—would be supplanted by a more modest effort focused on creating...
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China has been building artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea. File photo
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Top US Navy commander calls for fresh patrols in the region
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The world's two most powerful countries are involved in an escalating dispute over territory in the South China Sea.
countries are involved in an escalating dispute over territory in the South China Sea.
China has nearly finishing developing artificial islands in an area the US-allied Philippines has also claimed, and it's feared that they will be used as military and naval bases to intimidate other countries and dominate the oil-rich region — which also happens to be one of the world's most important commercial waterways.
China says it has sovereignty over the Spratly Islands, and there's no hostile intent. Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have claims in the South China Sea.
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US Navy Admiral Harry Harris told the Senate China's militarisation in the region is of "great concern" and pressed for patrols close to "those islands that are not islands."
Republican Senators, including John McCain, told the Pentagon to take actions that challenge China's claim to the territory.
China's territorial disputes
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South China Sea
A satellite image of what is claimed to be an under-construction airstrip at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands in the disputed South China Sea
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The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was "extremely concerned" by the comments, and that China was against "any country challenging China's sovereignty and security in the name of protecting freedom of navigation".
in the name of protecting freedom of navigation".
"We demand that the relevant country speak and act cautiously, earnestly respect China's sovereignty and security interests, and not take any risky or provocative acts."
Read more:
China has nearly completed the artificial islands in the South China Sea
"We will fight back" over South China Sea, says Beijing
Citing recent satellite footage, US expert Bonnie Glaser has said China is continuing to reclaim land in the region despite saying it stopped more than a month ago.
This heated war of words has kicked off just before Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the United States for a week. It's thought that President Barack Obama will want to talk about what's happening in South China Sea.
Xi Jinping visits the United States for a week. It's thought that President Barack Obama will want to talk about what's happening in South China Sea.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first trip to the United States next week comes at a time of growing tension between the two countries, particularly over cybersecurity.
President Barack Obama says cyber theft is “probably one of the biggest topics” that he will discuss with President Xi. Earlier this week Obama told U.S. business leaders that China’s theft of trade secrets is an “act of aggression that we have to stop.”
Cyber espionage is “fundamentally different from your government or its proxies engaging directly in industrial espionage and stealing trade secrets, stealing proprietary information from companies,” the president said.
Possible sanctions?
U.S. officials have suggested they could impose sanctions in response. Obama told members of the Business Roundtable that the U.S. government is preparing “a number of measures that will indicate to the Chinese that this is not just a matter of us being mildly upset.”
An editorial in China’s state-backed Global Times newspaper Friday called the U.S. president’s comments “disappointing” and said the U.S. exaggerates the severity of the cyber security threats. China’s government claims it also is a victim of cyber attacks.
China has repeatedly stressed that it is cracking down on cyber crime. This week, Zheng Zeguang, an assistant foreign minister, voiced the government’s opposition to any kind of hacking activity.
“Whoever is carrying out hacking attacks or business espionage in China is violating the country's law and will be punished by law," Zheng said.
China has denied past reports that showed evidence linking the hacking of foreign targets to Chinese military units.
High-tech summit
Ahead of what could be a tension-filled stop in Washington, Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet with top U.S. and Chinese technology executives, part of a high-profile attempt to showcase China’s importance and influence over the industry both as a consumer and producer of high-tech products.
The forum, which will be co-hosted by Microsoft in Seattle Wednesday, is expected to include tech tycoons such as the CEOs of Apple, IBM, Facebook, Google and Uber from the U.S. as well as their Chinese rivals from Baidu, Alibaba and ZTE.
Despite the commercial allure of China’s billion plus market, it remains unclear how high-tech companies are going to respond to the event. China’s Internet Tsar Lu Wei, the man responsible for keeping in place restrictions that are key obstacle to companies wanting to do business in China is expected to be a keynote speaker.
And the meeting comes at time when there is increasing uncertainty about regulations in China for high-tech firms.
According to the 2015 business climate survey, conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, 61 percent of the chamber’s members in the information and communications technology sector said China’s rule-making is unclear or inconsistent, which has an impact on companies’ ability and willingness to invest there.
Some feel the forum could help both sides address the issues.
“Governments and standardization agencies can also work together with their counterparts from different countries on common security standards. That’s really the key thing I am expecting — that such [a] dialogue will provide some framework for the future joint efforts,” Cheng Lixin, chairman and CEO of ZTE USA, told VOA. Cheng is among those expected to attend the event next week.
Understanding on cyber theft
But reaching a framework might be difficult given that cyber security is a new terrain that all countries are trying to navigate.
U.S. officials have struggled to formulate a response to allegations of cyber hacking from abroad, partly because the phenomenon is still relatively new. It is also difficult to determine who carried out specific cyber attacks: activists, government employees or corporations.
Peter Yu, law professor at Texas A&M University, said that uncertainty makes imposing sanctions extremely difficult, but talks could help both sides come up with a common understanding.
“The condition of the sanctions will allow the U.S. government to draw a more clear line about what is acceptable, and what’s not. It will also be a good stepping stone to have more discussions about how we can actually contain [hacking] activities,” Yu said.
Help for Chinese tech industry?
Chinese officials at the summit likely want to focus on developing local brands and technologies with the help of foreign companies, said Kitty Fok, managing director of IDC China.
“If the discussion is going to be focused on how the American companies partner with local companies… or to develop something in China together. That would be a very good first step,” Fok said.
That echoes with the Chinese leader’s pledge of promoting “indigenous innovation” in a bid to wean off the country’s dependency on foreign technology. However, Fok said many initiatives China has in place to grow its economy cannot be achieved by Chinese brands alone. She says that means China will have to carefully strike a balance between its protectionist approach and growth strategy.
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Welcome to OVERNIGHT CYBERSECURITY, your daily rundown of the biggest news in the world of hacking and data privacy. We're here to connect the dots as leaders in government, policy and industry try to counter the rise in cyber threats. What lies ahead for Congress, the administration and the latest company under siege? Whether you're a consumer, a techie or a D.C. lifer, we're here to give you ...
THE BIG STORIES:
--JUST DO IT ALREADY: On Friday, Reps. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Randy Forbes (R-Va.) will introduce a resolution urging President Obama to levy economic sanctions against Chinese businesses and state-backed entities that hack U.S. interests. The White House, under increasing pressure from lawmakers to penalize Beijing for cyber espionage, on Wednesday hinted that sanctions may be coming down the pike -- although unnamed White House officials have said such penalties won't happen until after Chinese President Xi Jinping's official state visit next week. Forbes and Wilson's resolution would put Congressional opinion on record when it comes to sanctioning China, but would not force any action by the White House. "The world must see that attacking American families, whether through conventional methods or emerging tactics, such as cyberattacks, should be exposed," Wilson said in a statement to The Hill. "It is clear that there are Chinese businesses and state-owned enterprises that can be linked to cyberattacks against United States. I'm introducing a resolution tomorrow to urge the President to apply economic sanctions to send a clear message -- this is dangerous to American families." To read our full piece, click here.
--WE GOT A DEAL?: A senior Chinese official insisted Thursday that Beijing is willing to work with the U.S. on boosting Internet security, but will protect its own interests in the process. Ahead of next week's state visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping, Beijing and Washington have been sparring over allegations that the Chinese government is behind a massive campaign to pilfer American intellectual property. President Obama has strongly hinted economic sanctions are looming, although the two sides have apparently reached some type of detente until at least after Xi's visit. To read our full piece, click here.
--HOUSE RULES: China is also tangling with U.S. tech firms ahead of Xi's trip stateside. Beijing officials are pressing major firms to sign a pledge that could require them to give access to user data and intellectual property. The document, distributed this summer, asks companies to promise they will store Chinese user data within the country. It also asks companies to pledge that their products are "secure and controllable," a highly contentious phrase that critics say will give Beijing officials guaranteed access to encrypted data or even source code. The pledge could come up during next week's meeting in Seattle between Chinese officials and tech heavyweights like Apple, Facebook, IBM, Google and Uber. To read our full piece, click here.
UPDATE ON CYBER POLICY:
--The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill Wednesday that would give European citizens the right to sue in U.S. courts over misuse of their personal data.
The measure, known as the Judicial Redress Act, is seen as central to helping mollify European allies angered by the revelation of widespread U.S. surveillance programs. The bill is also the lynchpin in a recently signed deal between the U.S. and European Union that would allow law enforcement agencies on both sides to swap more data.
The offering from Reps. John Conyers (Mich.), the panel's top Democrat, and Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), is relatively non-controversial. It was approved by voice vote without amendments.
Read on, here.
LIGHTER CLICK:
--WHY LAUGH?
WHO'S IN THE SPOTLIGHT:
--AMERICAN AIRLINES, which had to ground flights for several hours at three major hubs because of computer problems. The airline blamed "connectivity problems," highlighting the aviation industry's ongoing struggle to keep its networks secure and functioning as it moves to more high-tech systems. Read more about the outage here.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has even had its own problems with air traffic control systems. The August outage of a high-profile air traffic control system exposed the difficulties of managing the government's ever-expanding software networks that are keeping the country's critical infrastructure afloat. Read more about that outage here.
And of course, any time there's a computer glitch that grounds flights, people inevitably think "hack." While there doesn't appear to be any nefarious activity in the American Airlines snafu, the airline industry is under siege from cyberattackers. In recent months, hackers have infiltrated the U.S. air traffic control system, forced airlines to ground planes and potentially stolen detailed travel records on millions of people. To read more on that trend, check out our story here.
REPORTS IN FOCUS:
--COOL KIDS DON'T FOLLOW THE RULES. As China moves forward with a series of controversial counterterrorism and banking technology laws that critics say are thinly-veiled protectionism, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) takes a look at Beijing's history of policies that butt up against international World Trade Organization (WTO) rules the Asian power pledged to uphold.
"Disregard for international rules of market-based competition is increasingly apparent as China continues to develop a robust set of mercantilist policies, virtually all of which violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the World Trade Organization's laws," the report reads.
Check out the full thing here.
--J'ACCUSE! The Russian government may be behind a seven-year campaign to infiltrate governments worldwide, perhaps including the State Department and White House.
Security firm F-Secure has the report, which encompasses years of research.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Links from our blog, The Hill, and around the Web.
Lawmakers are accusing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of stonewalling Congress about a proposed reorganization of a government division that helps protect federal networks. (The Hill)
The nation's top counterintelligence agency says it's not responsible for keeping tabs on the Office of Personnel Management's insecure networks. (The Hill)
The SEC is conducting its second round of cybersecurity exams for advisors and brokers. (The National Law Review)
The U.S. Cyber Command is building a massive system to provide a bird's-eye view of vulnerabilities in the military's computer networks. (Reuters)
Two D.C. equity firms have teamed up to buy a majority stake in a Colorado cybersecurity company. (The Washington Post)
The head of Britain's counterintelligence agency called on social media companies to do more to help the agency track terrorists and other cyber criminals. (The Guardian)
Libraries are rallying around a New Hampshire library forced by the DHS to shut down its dark Web portal. (Motherboard)
U.S. derivatives regulators have brought their first case against a Bitcoin trading platform. (Reuters)
One of the 30 defendants accused in a massive insider trading scheme says he never traded on hacked information. (Reuters)
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The Russian government recently stated that the Kremlin's official website and the website of the Russian Electoral Commission were hit by massive cyber attacks on September 13, 2015, Russia's national Election Day.
"Yesterday someone attempted to hack our website and alter the data there, making 50,000 requests per minute," Russian Election Commission chief Vladimir Churov stated at a press conference on Monday, RT.com reports. "They failed and we have already established the culprit -- it's a company based in San Francisco."
And Dmitry Peskov, Russian president Vladimir Putin's press secretary, stated that "a very powerful hacking attack" was launched against the president's website. "The defense system worked, even though it was not easy," he said.
Tripwire director of IT security and risk strategy Tim Erlin told eSecurity Planet by email that attack attribution is increasingly being used as a political gambit. "The discussion, though brief, of China's cyber-attacks on the U.S. in [Wednesday's] Republican presidential debate is certainly one aspect of this new frontier for information security, but this kind of public pronouncement of culpability from Russia is another," he said.
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"We should expect that cybersecurity will continue to be an important topic in ... politics, and we should also expect that nations and politicians will evolve their rhetoric on this topic as they further understand the potential leverage," Erlin added.
Politics and cyber security
According to the results of a recent Tripwire survey of 210 information security professionals, 68 percent of respondents said they'd prefer to vote for a candidate in the 2016 U.S. presidential election who has a strong cyber security policy.
Fifty-four percent said cyber security policy and regulation would be a key issue in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections.
"There is a big difference between a candidate who has a cybersecurity policy and a candidate who has an understanding of cybersecurity," Tripwire CTO Dwayne Melancon said in a statement. "In the past, there have been unrealistic expectations regarding the government's role in the cybersecurity space as well as difficulties in passing effective legislation."
"It will be important for candidates to not only articulate their concern for cybersecurity, but to also share a concrete plan on how they will incorporate the expertise of respected experts, who can help craft practical, effective and sustainable cybersecurity policies," Melancon added.
A Russian hacker group
Separately, F-Secure Labs published a report [PDF] stating that a hacker group called the Dukes "has been working for the Russian Federation since at least 2008 to collect intelligence in support of foreign and security policy decision-making."
While the Dukes' earliest identified attacks were launched against Chechnya in 2008, the group began targeting the West in 2009 with attacks on a U.S.-based foreign policy think tank and a NATO exercise in Europe. The group's MiniDuke malware was identified by researchers at Kaspersky Lab and CrySys Lab in 2013 -- at that point, the F-Secure report states, the group had already been operating for at least four and a half years.
"The connections identified in the report have significant international security implications, particularly for states in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus," Patrik Maldre, junior research fellow at the International Center for Defense and Security, said in a statement. "They shed new light on how heavily Russia has invested in offensive cyber capabilities, and demonstrate that those capabilities have become an important component in advancing its strategic interests."
"By linking together seven years of individual attacks against Georgia, Europe, and the United States, the report confirms the need for current and prospective NATO members to strengthen collective security by increasing cyber cooperation in order to avoid becoming victims of Russian information warfare, espionage, and subterfuge," Maldre added.
A recent eSecurity Planet article examined the growing threat of cyber war.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
Gangsters inhabit the highest echelons of American cinema. Whether highly fictionalized (the first two “Godfather” movies, the 1983 “Scarface”) or drawn from real criminal escapades (“GoodFellas,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” the 1932 “Scarface”), they feature in some of Hollywood’s best and most influential movies.
So when it came time to make “Black Mass,” the astounding true story of South Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger, director Scott Cooper had no illusions about what he was up against.
“I made this film with great trepidation because many of my favorite films, many of the best films ever made, are in this genre,” says Cooper, whose two previous features were the Oscar-winning country music drama “Crazy Heart” and “Out of the Furnace,” a little-seen crime drama that was kind of a dry run for this one. “The bar is extremely high, so you can really only fail.”
Bulger ran the local Winter Hill Gang in Boston’s Irish ghetto. His younger brother William rose, partially on his opposition to school integration, to be president of the State Senate and, later, president of the University of Massachusetts. John Connolly, whom Whitey had protected when they were kids in the tough neighborhood, joined the feds, busted some Italian mobs in New York City, and after returning to his hometown, talked the local Bureau chief into secretly granting Whitey informer immunity in 1975 for his help in taking down the North End’s Mafia.
It all kind of worked, but also led to a murderous spree by Bulger’s gang that engulfed the city, spread to Miami and Oklahoma, and ultimately came to a conclusion in, of all places, Santa Monica in 2011.
“My way into it was telling a very human story about diabolical characters; a story with, really, no protagonists,” Cooper explains. “I was attracted to its Shakespearean nature, it goes all the way back to Greek tragedy notions. But what really attracted me is that here you have the most notorious crime figure in Boston’s history, while his brother is one of the most powerful politicians in the city, and their childhood friend’s the FBI’s great white hope. I was really just drawn to the fact that truth is stranger than fiction.”
Whitey “disappeared” after the scheme was exposed in the 1990s; the second most wanted fugitive behind Osama bin Laden spent most of that time hiding under an assumed identity, but otherwise in plain sight, in the California beach town.
Based on the book by Boston Globe journalists Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, who broke the story about Bulger’s cozy relationship with the FBI, “Black Mass” stars Johnny Depp as the charismatic sociopath, British star Benedict Cumberbatch as Billy Bulger and Australian Joel Edgerton (“The Gift”) as Connolly.
Depp is already receiving widespread acclaim for his typically makeup-encased but atypically, chillingly realistic performance.
“Johnny always physically transforms for parts, so I knew that we would get the look right,” Cooper says of his star’s approximation of the gangster’s ashen appearance. “It took a lot of months to really perfect it, and I think we got it close enough that, when people who knew Whitey saw Johnny on the set, they found it uncanny how he looked like him.
“But I was most impressed by Johnny’s interior transformation,” Cooper continues. “He’s an extremely soulful, quiet, kind man. But to see him play someone as cold, calculating and monstrous as Whitey was a transformation that I’d only hoped we could achieve.”
“Johnny was very still and coiled as Whitey, which I thought — as much as everybody’s making a good deal out of his outward appearance in the movie — was the real special trick of embodiment,” Edgerton adds. “Johnny was someone that I’ve admired for a long time, so it was interesting to play a guy on screen who has a bit of that admiration for him. I could secrete that into days working with him, in a way.”
Indeed, while Depp’s Bulger is getting the film’s initial buzz, it’s really Edgerton who played the wider, more tragic arc of the piece.
“I’d never played someone who’s currently living and breathing before, with the events of the story so recent,” the actor says of Connolly, who has been serving a 40-year prison sentence since 2002. “I figured, maybe naively, not only was the story going to be there all laid out for me, but also all of the reasons, all of the rationale and all of the motivations would be completely set down. But even though I thought the screenplay was good, there’s still always room for interpretation.”
Take the way Connolly rose to the top of the FBI. While some may think the driving force was greed, Edgerton believes there was more to it.
“It could be in a large part put down to a need to be loved, equated to a need to be celebrated and rise in the ranks — ambition,” Edgerton says. “And the other thing is a weird psychology that exists in South Boston, and a certain rock star adoration for Jimmy that continued into their adult lives. All that combined with the opportunity that the relationship created was the perfect storm.”
Bulger, who is also imprisoned in Florida, expressed no interest in cooperating with the production. And even if Connolly had, Edgerton says he would not have taken him up on it.
“I don’t know this for a fact, but I know it from footage that I have of John, he would defend the actions we show in the movie as an operation sanctioned fully, even though murkily, by the FBI’s top echelon for the informant program,” Edgerton says. “I think he truly believes that he was scapegoated.”
Despite the Bureau’s own culpability in Bulger’s crime spree, Cooper claims he received extensive cooperation from its offices in Boston (where the movie was almost entirely shot, sometimes at the actual sites of the gang’s crimes) and Los Angeles.
“His life in Los Angeles was largely undramatic as far as we know. He was laying low,” the filmmaker says. “You wonder why a man who’s on the FBI’s Most Wanted list can live in Santa Monica for 15 years. He’s very crafty, but I speculate that maybe he was a man who some people didn’t want to be caught because of how it might shine a negative light on certain governmental institutions. I don’t know if that’s accurate in any way, but our FBI is very capable. That the man lived for that long unrecognized is just shocking.”
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Nato troops training in Lithuania earlier this year. Photo: Mindaugas Kulbis/TT
Secret government documents suggest that Sweden could get involved with a new elite Nato-linked force set to be deployed in the event of war in the Baltics, Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet is reporting.
Sweden, which is not currently part of Nato’s political and military alliance, is considering joining JEF, a UK-led expeditionary force following “Nato standards and doctrines”, according to the Swedish broadsheet.
JEF is designed to help northern European countries respond rapidly to war, including missions on behalf of organisations such as the UN and Nato. But Sweden did not sign a Letter of Intent between Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Norway, the UK and the Netherlands last year, when the neighbouring nations agreed to set up the force with a view to becoming operational before 2018.
Svenska Dagbladet says it has seen a memorandum, prepared in November 2014 by Mats Danielsson, the Swedish attaché in London, and titled ‘Orientation of JEF and requests for Swedish participation’.
Colonel Danielsson told the newspaper that while no political decision had been made by the Swedish government, there was an “ongoing dialogue” about what JEF might mean for Sweden.
Asked how interested the UK was in involving the Nordic country, he added: “They would not have anything against it. As I understand it would be perfectly possible if we wanted to.”
Sweden’s Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist told Svenska Dagbladet that Sweden "has not received any formal invitation to contribute to JEF" and that "consequently no preparation going on in the Cabinet."
But opposition centre-right politicians were quick to suggest that they also suspected discussions about closer links with Nato were going on behind closed doors, in the face of growing aggression from Russia in the Baltic region.
“This is a game under the covers all the way,” said Liberal Party politician and chairman of Sweden’s Defence Committee Allan Widman.
He told Svenska Dagbladet: “The government is willing to allow Sweden to increase its dependence on Nato, but it is still not ready to discuss membership. The implication is that our unilateral dependence on Nato continues to increase and we become more and more at the mercy of individual countries within Nato.”
Sweden’s Social Democrat-led coalition government has vowed not to join Nato. But it has already moved to extend military cooperation with other neighbouring countries in recent months. In April,Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland announced far-reaching plans which Hultqvist described as “a direct response to aggressive Russian behaviour”. Earlier this week Sweden signed a new deal with Nato member Poland.
A poll released on Monday suggested that more Swedes are now in favour of joining Nato than against the idea, representing a rapid shift in public opinion.
41 percent of people interviewed by pollsters said that they were in favour of seeking membership in the military defence alliance, 39 percent said they were against it and 20 percent were uncertain.
According to Sweden's Security Service Säpo, the biggest intelligence threat against Sweden in 2014 came from Russia.
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