NEW: No sign foreign actors exploiting US racial divides or #COVOD19 on @Twitter
"We haven't found evidence of concerted platform manipulation by foreign actors in either of those areas" @Policy Dir @nickpickles tells House Intelligence Committee
"We have seen a change in tactics" per @Twitter's @nickpickles "Activity particularly around #COVID, geopolitics but also the issues in the #UnitedStates around particularly policing have transferred into state-controlled media"
"Those media entities and those government accounts are engaging" per @nickpickles "That shift from platform manipulation to overt state assets is something we've observed... This remains an evolving security challenge"
"We haven't seen coordinated inauthentic behavior on the part of foreign governments, particularly targeting voting systems or how to vote in the #UnitedStates" per @Facebook's @ngleicher
"We have not seen foreign actors engage in coordinated inauthentic behavior around the [#GeorgeFloyd] protests yet" per @ngleicher "We have teams that are proactively hunting for that"
"People who are on our platforms, users, they don't want to see clickbait. They don't want to see the type of divisive content that you're describing" @Facebook's @ngleicher tells @RepJimHimes "If we were to show only that, users wouldn't want to engage..."
"...that's why we take steps for example not to recommend groups that are repeatedly sharing information that crosses certain lines" adds @ngleicher
#Russia-linked actors "returning to techniques from the 60s, 70s or 80s in attempts to evade or get around the protections we put in place" per @Facebook's @ngleicher
"We did a takedown of a network linked to Sputnik news, a state media organization out of Russia,that ran seemingly independent news organizations across #Europe, representing themselves as independent..in fact they were all centrally controlled"
"That's the type of behavior that we enforce against" per @Facebook's @ngleicher
FB's @ngleicher adds information about foreign interference also shared w/law enforcement before public disclosure
"Just yesterday we began blocking ads from state media, including from #Russia, coming into the #UnitedStates ahead of the election" per @Facebook's @ngleicher
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ISIS-Somalia has dug in - operating out of Buur Dhexaad, described by the UN sanctions monitoring team as "a strategic base secured by natural caves and defensive structures safe from aerial and ground offensives"
ISIS-Somalia leader Abdul Qadir Mumin has also sought to limit unnecessary exposure while focusing on boosting the affiliate's finances thru increased extortion campaigns, per the UN report
Some of that money has been poured into advanced weaponry and drones
ISIS-Somalia has "employed unmanned aerial vehicles for reconnaissance and limited explosive deployment" per the UN. with an aim at "building suicide unmanned aerial vehicles"
NEW: "Growing confidence" that the global leader of ISIS is Abdul Qadir Mumin, also the head of ISIS-Somalia, per new UN sanctions monitoring team report
"But doubts continued to be expressed by other Member States"
If Somalia's Mumin is ISIS leader Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, "it may signify a deliberate pivot towards a more decentralized operational structure, further from the core conflict zone" per the UN report
Of the 9 regional offices set up by ISIS, only 2 remain active in Africa:
- the al-Karrar office in Somalia, which serves as a key financial hub
- the al-Furqan office in Nigeria
HAPPENING NOW: Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing for Tulsi Gabbard to serve as US Director of National Intelligence
"It’s fair to say Ms. Gabbard’s nomination has generated a bit more interest and attention than do most nominees before this committee" per Senate Committee Chairman, Tom Cotton
"But I want to stress that Ms. Gabbard has been and will be treated with the exact same respect, consideration, and professionalism that we have extended to every other nominee" per Cotton
NEW: US intelligence agencies pushing back vs claims health ailments linked to Havana Syndrome were caused by a foreign adversary
"The intelligence does not link a foreign actor to these events. Indeed, it points away from their involvement" per a US intelligence official
"5 elements of the intelligence community continue to assess that it's very unlikely of foreign actors responsible" per the US intelligence official
BUT 2 intelligence agencies have reevaluated - "shift from unlikely w/low confidence to roughly even chance with low confidence"
The US intelligence official, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity, describe the shift in view about the possible involvement of foreign adversaries as "subtle" - "They have a low confidence in their judgments"
NEW: Islamic State-Somalia getting boost from an "influx of foreign fighters"
A just-issued UN sanctions monitoring team report warns the foreign fighters "have expanded and enhanced the group’s capabilities against al-Shabaab"
Influx of foreign fighters to IS-Somalia " has coincided with the re-emergence of the Al-Karrar office as a
key administrative and financial hub for [ISIS] globally" per the UN report
IS-Somalia being led by "a cadre of former al-Shabaab
militants based in the Bari region of Puntland" per UN report
Abdirahman Fahiye Isse Mohamud is the emir of IS-Somalia, per report, "responsible for [ISIS] operations in Somalia"
NEW: Senate Democrats ask @DeptofDefense @TheJusticeDept to look at Elon Musk's reported contact w/Russian officials - "determine whether this behavior should force a review of Mr. Musk’s
continued involvement in SpaceX’s varying contracts" w/the US government
"Communications between Russian government officials and any individual with a security
clearance have the potential to put our security at risk" per @SenatorShaheen @SenJackReed
"We urge you to take appropriate action immediately"
Musk's alleged contacts with Russian officials was first reported by @WSJ, which cited current and former U.S., European and Russian officials