Following our initial analysis of the Osama bin Laden letters released by Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point, we’ll more closely examine interesting moments from the letters and size them up against what was publicly reported as happening in the world in order to gain a deeper perspective on what was known or unknown at the time.

Isolating and analyzing references to those in Yemen with relations to Osama bin Laden (OBL), as identified in the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) letters, we find a few key al-Qaeda individuals associated with the country in the correspondence of OBL.

Bin Laden's Yemen connections from letters - Click for full size

Highlighted are several of the prominent actors, and below, we’ll examine the social network for several of those figures:

1. Anwar al-Awlaki (senior AQAP spokesman and recruiter, killed September 2011)
2. Saeed al-Shihri (deputy leader of AQAP, killed in February 2011)
3. Nasir al-Wuhayshi (senior AQAP leader and OBL’s former secretary)

From “Closed Source” to Open Source

To do so, we’ll switch from the isolated instance of Recorded Future used for analysis of the letters (our separate repository to examine just the OBL documents) to the full Recorded Future index of events culled from more than 70,000 public sources. There we can look at relations for each of these three individuals during the same timeframe covered by the corpus of letters – 2006 to 2011. Here’s the big picture:

AQAP Social Network from Public Sources - Click for Full Size

Connectors

In addition to OBL himself, there are several individuals that actually tie into all three of those highlighted above. One of the most prominent is Qasim al-Raymi, a high ranking member of the AQAP leadership and a prison escapee alongside al-Wuhayshi in 2006.

One item to to note in the network graph of al-Raymi’s connections shown below is the absence of a direct connection to Bin Laden.

Qasim al Raymi AQAP Network

The second name to link up with al-Wuhayshi, al-Shihri, and al-Awlaki is Yemeni journalist Abdul Elah Haidar Shaea, who was sentenced in early 2011 to five years for serving as a media advisor to AQAP. Court proceedings alleged that Shaea had high profile meetings with each of those AQAP head figures cited above as well as Qasim al-Raymi.

Haidar Shaea AQAP Connections - Click for full size

The Haidar Shaea event is particularly interesting when adding context by way of the letters featured in the CTC release, paricularly  document 00000016 dated October 2010 to Nasir al-Wuhayshi that outlines the stance and value on image through the media: “We need to understand that a huge part of the battle is the media, and the cable channels today play a stronger role than the Hja‟in poets during the ignorant era.”

Text from letter to Abu Basir

Scanning the full network and the subsequent relations connected to Qasim al-Raymi there is a single Western name: Adam Gadahn.

Adam Gadahn Connection

Gadahn is an American born media spokesman for Al-Qaeda that shows close connections to each of the three highlighted OBL ties in Yemen. He is also presumed to be the author of one of the letters released by CTC, and in producing and appearing in a number of a propaganda videos during the last decade is tightly knit into this social network of AQAP.

Adam Gadahn AQAP Connections - Click for Live View

Edges

Isolated edges in the broad network above also describe segmentation of responsibilities and unique relationships. Recently in the news AQAP bomb-maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri was linked to al-Awlaki, but not others, through their respective roles in setting in motion the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit in December 2009; al-Asiri was, in fact, initially believed to be killed in attacks on al-Awlaki in May and September 2011. However, recent events show that al-Asiri is very much active in orchestrating strikes against the United States.

Anwar al-Awlaki and Ibrahim al Asiri Relation

One other standout name, in a network full of men, is Haylah al Qassir. She is connected to Saeed al-Shihri by way of a video released after her arrest calling for the kidnapping of Saudi officials as retribution. Al-Qassir was reportedly a main conduit of funding and recruiting for AQAP.

Haylah al Qassir AQAP Connections - Click for Full Size

Conclusion

This analysis provides an overview of the individuals in Yemen that were closely tied to Osama bin Laden during the period of his correspondence from Abbottabad, and then shifts to leverage the expanse of media coverage and discussion on AQAP to identify individuals tightly woven into that network that remain influential in AQAP today.

In doing so, we’re able to identify key people to track going forward:

• Nasir al-Wuhayshi
• Qasim al-Raymi
• Abdul Elah Haidar Shaea
• Adam Gadahn
• Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri
• Haylah al Qassir

Undoubtedly, we’re only scratching the surface, and there’s so much more to untangle even just from the relations above. We’ll continue to share analysis on related issues in an attempt to connect the dots between the correspondence released by CTC and the vast public record we have on Al-Qaeda, but if you have questions or want to do a more comprehensive examination of these relationships, contact Recorded Future.

This piece is the second in a three-part series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), which uses Recorded Future to examine the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s political future. We’ll be hosting a webcast discussing this research next Thursday, April 12.

Introduction

As covered in the last  post, the actors that comprise leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood has and does change over time. In the months following the January 25th uprising, the Muslim Brotherhood stepped into the vacuum left by Mubarak. More specifically, the younger members of the Muslim Brotherhood challenged the party’s older leadership, in some cases, deciding to desert or defect.

Using time windows to evaluate changes over time is a powerful analytical methodology. In unique cases, such as  that of a revolution, the political development under study shifts the paradigm. How to understand the indicators of an event which is not foreseen? With Recorded Future’s temporal analysis, we can look at a set period of time as it was forecast, actually happened, and covered afterward.

Figuring out the FJP and Detecting Defections

Post-January 25th, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader, Mohammed Badie, feared that he would lose the support of the youth. Subsequently, he issued an edict forbidding any defections or creation of new parties. Shortly thereafter, the Muslim Brotherhood formed its own political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, with Mohammed Saad al-Katani as the head. As demonstrated previously, it is a quick process to visualize the key players and their relationships, which we can use for future searches.

In response, the younger elements of the Muslim Brotherhood gathered to discuss a new agenda for the party — one that focused on greater transparency in government, better relations with the West, and equality for minority Coptics and women. In the subsequent months, some Muslim Brotherhood youth formed a new party, Al-Tiyyar Al-Masri, or  “Egyptian Current Party” (ECP), which was part of the Revolution Continues Bloc.

As coalitions evolve and dissolve, it is complicated to follow each of the statements and responses by the various elements within a coalition. To track this element, I created a watchlists — of ECP members, other parties in the coalition, and members of the Islamist alliance. Typically to visualize shifting alliances, one would need the assistance of this guide from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace combined with this map from The Arabist blog. Below is a dynamic and time-shiftable network visualization of the players and parties in the Islamist alliance:

Network Map of Islamist Alliance

From this expanded network map, we may notice a few more players who hadn’t previously been on our radar, so we can create a watchlist from all these entities. Just as easily, it is possible to visualize the Revolution Continues Bloc and do the same. Now we have a more robust way to search, monitor, and visualize the evolving relationships.

Prognosticating Presidential Elections

How do we figure out what we are missing? Recorded Future’s toolset empowers an analyst to accelerate the process of hypothesis testing, by quickly identifying topical and temporal blindspots, in this case around key dates leading up to the presidential election.

More than bureaucratic planning, these date of Egypt’s presidential election underpinned two important political dynamics. First, the Muslim Brotherhood explicitly vowed not to enter a candidate into the presidential race and expelled one of its own leaders, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, when he declared his intent to run. Following this moving window is critical to watching the Brotherhood’s calculation of if and when it would nominate a formal candidate.

In late-February, before the date was known, here is a picture of the forecasted dates for the election and preceding candidate registration period:

Key Egyptian Presidential Election Dates

There was a peak in mid-April, as the closing date for candidate registration, and anticipating the elections in late June. Once the elections were announced as late May, we see a different picture of events, though with some additional texture.

Egypt Announced Election Date Timeline

When the elections were finally announced on February 29th, as slated for May 23, we can see how the forecasts adjust (by setting the publishing date after March 1st). Of course, we find a peak on the candidate closure date (April 8th) and the election dates, May 23rd and May 24th, but we also discover that June 21st is the date set for announcing the final voting results. Not only does this timeline give us a clear picture of dates and how they relate, but also we better understand the previous forecasts, specifically the follow-on announcement of voting results approximately one month after the election date.

In addition to Aboul Fotouh, several others had declared their candidacy (e.g. Amr Moussa) while rumors abounded about whom else might enter the race. To track these developments, I built a watchlist of the announced candidates, and another of the rumored and potential candidates. For the announced candidates, one can quickly develop a sense of varied sentiment for each of the candidates, as well as how each of them did or did not respond to one another (e.g. El Baradei’s formal withdrawal from the race).

A second dynamic was the revision of the constitution in light of presidential elections: the ascendent Muslim Brotherhood pushed for revision of the constitution after the presidential elections, whereas the ruling military, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), wanted to draft the constitution before the elections to ensure their contribution.

Tracking these shifting developments would typically require constant scanning of press, statement, and policy papers. With Recorded Future’s custom alerts, however, I receive email alerts based on my custom queries, for example, anytime a member of the SCAF talks about election dates or a Brotherhood official mentions the constitution.

Before, During, and After the Parliamentary Polls

In the months after its formation and up to the election bid, the FJP took time to organize; observers wondered how independent the leadership and platform of the FJP would be from the decision-making, influence, and structure of the Muslim Brotherhood. We will address the FJP-MB relationship in the next post — in this one, we will focus on the internal dynamics of the FJP.

First, let’s examine the timeline of events leading up to the November 28, 2011 polls. To narrow the scope of the analysis, it is possible to limit the publication time to not extend beyond November 28 — thus eliminating the benefit of hindsight. Also, we get a more textured narrative if we look at both the timeline of the party and then of just the leadership (from the watchlist created above) from the beginning of July.

Freedom & Justice Party Leadership Timeline up to November Polls

With lots of volatility in the months following its formation, the FJP had to decide where and how to spend their political capital — from  members of the Muslim Brotherhood youth defecting to issues of transitional justice to consolidation of a platform. In the weeks preceding the parliamentary elections, it became clear that the FJP was setting up for a larger win than initially imagined. Now, to contrast with the same picture of the FJP’s leadership with the same time period (the gray dots are incidents and reports):

Freedom & Justice Party Leadership Timeline up to November Polls

The clearest differences is that the volatility of momentum was much less during July and August and non-existent in September, but what does that mean? Once we investigate the reason for the peaks, different conclusions can be drawn about the FJP’s challenges during this time. Some of the attention around the FJP’s leadership, naturally, was surrounding announcements of political appointments and meeting outcomes. More specifically, we see two issues emerge: the drafting of the constitution and a platform issue about tourists visiting beaches dressing inappropriately according to the Muslim Brotherhood’s perspective. Later, the leadership highlights the military’s entrenchment, foreshadowing a mounting struggle.

A more complex view is the combined picture of the both the leadership and the party. The ability to disaggregate leadership statements and perspectives from the party overall adds a previously energy-intensive layer of analysis. For contrasting the visualization during and after the opening of the polls, we will just focus on the FJP party, and again Again, the publication time is set for after November 28, so we’re not including coverage form before the polls.

FJP & MB After Elections

There are two very sharp peaks — one in mid-December which reflects Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s assurance that sharia law should be applied gradually, likely to assure the West, observers, and Egyptian minorities that the Muslim Brotherhood was not “taking over” the country. The subsequent peaks are around the various rounds, followed by the second sharp peak, when results are announced.

With a sweeping victory, the FJP surprised several analysts who did not expect such a strong performance. In the weeks after the announcement of results, the Muslim Brotherhood, through the FJP, assures that it will not “Islamicize” Egypt. Importantly, Aboul Fotouh garners attention for calling for the Muslim Brotherhood to refrain from “partisan activity.” The last peak in late February is Secretary of State Clinton clarifying that the Brotherhood, now in power, will not renege on the long-standing peace treaty with Israel — an indication that the US wants to keep channels open to the ascendant FJP.

Lastly, let’s briefly look at what the FJP’s formation may have meant for its election bid. By comparing network maps before (left) and after (right) the elections, it is clear that the nodes organize into a more cohesive network. While this conclusion may appear obvious, it does not take much effort or time to confirm the hypothesis.

FJP Players Before Formation

FJP Players After Formation

Similarly, if we wanted to assess if this crystallization continued, we could do the same search for the past month. One of the key drivers of change is the stability and rigidity of an organization’s structure. By contrasting these views over time — and continuing to monitor the shifts — emerging players and patterns of increasing organization (or lack thereof) present themselves.

Conclusion — Comparing Political Presents

As political circumstances change, an expert can separate the signals from the noise. With the ability to constantly scan the horizon, Recorded Future’s custom alerts help track emerging signals, for example, shifting political alliances or the relationship between a recently empowered Muslim Brotherhood and entrenched ruling military. Additionally, we can place political developments in rapid-changing context by comparing relationships among the data before and after key moments. Lastly, Recorded Future shortens the cycle required to become familiar with the sources, stories, and subjects; data visualization provides a topographical map to navigate the terrain of a new topic.

Combining the levels of analysis described above, we now have a set of drivers to track developments in Egypt’s political landscape: FJP’s negotiations with other elements of the Islamist alliance, dates on drafting of the constitution, defections and desertions of the Muslim Brotherhood youth, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s increasing or decreasing coordination with the FJP.

In this post, we investigated the run up to Egyptian parliamentary polls, creation of a new political party, and subsequent results, focusing on answering three questions for the analyst:

• How do I keep an eye on emerging signals?
• How do I correct for the benefit of hindsight when assessing a paradigm shift (e.g. a revolution)?
• Where are my topical and temporal blindspots?

For the last post, we will use Recorded Future to evaluate the background, impact, and anticipation of Khairat al-Shater’s presidential candidacy, the nature of relationship between the FJP and the Muslim Brotherhood, and potential tension points between the SCAF and FJP, focusing on answering three questions for the analyst:

• How does an individual’s history change with an elevated profile?
• What can be learned from one-time surprises (e.g. Khairat’s nomination)?
• How are shifts in and struggles for power portrayed over time, across geographies, and amongst sources?

This piece is the first in a three-part series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), which uses Recorded Future to examine the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s political future. We’ll be hosting a webcast discussing this research next Thursday, April 12.

Introduction

In early 2011, the world watched Egypt revolt, catalyzing a cascade of uprisings across the Middle East. Since then, Egypt has weathered protests, parliamentary polls, and power plays — soon there will be presidential elections.

After a revolution, one may wonder: what is next for Egypt — who is in charge? In the wake of the uprising of January 25, 2011, an opposition force has been building momentum: the Muslim Brotherhood. Beyond the political maneuvering and Islamist ideology, the Muslim Brotherhood’s sweep of recent parliamentary elections and presidential aspiration are best understood by examining its historical, rhetorical, leadership, and structural changes over time.

This post provides context and an overview for deeper analysis using Recorded Future’s various analytical and temporal tools. Despite the complex, ever-changing, and polarizing nature of Egyptian politics, Recorded Future allows a non-expert to confidently achieve depth and breadth on this critical political moment.

Muslim Brotherhood’s History and Agenda

Although the Muslim Brotherhood did not play an active role in the #Jan25 movement, the ousting of Mubarak and shift change in power provided a long-awaited opportunity for this opposition group to consolidate and legitimize its power. At least, that’s what the data shows.

Below is a snapshot of the timeline for a five year period (January 1 2006 to January 25 2011) for the Muslim Brotherhood. There are a few noticeable peaks through 2009, mostly due to the frequent arrests of Muslim Brotherhood members.

Recorded Future Timeline of the Muslim Brotherhood

After years as marginalized opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood has adapted to survive in harsh political conditions. As became clear much later, the organization would flourish when the spring finally did arrive by trying to establish legitimacy and seeking to consolidate their power.

Hindsight is always perfect and, often, useless. Instead of looking back at the past (from the present), what if we could look at past versions of the future? More concretely, were there any indications before January 2011 that a major moment was just over the horizon? With Recorded Future, we can time shift our frame of reference to only analyze information reported prior to January 1, 2011 — situating our reference point in the past, but looking forward — analytical time travel, if you will.

Examining queries not just around the Muslim Brotherhood, but also around Egypt, the initial drivers of change present themselves:

• Muslim Brotherhood’s boycott of late 2010 elections
• tension for Egypt’s minority Christian community around Christmas 2010
• Mohammed El Baradei’s planned return to Egypt in January 2011
• forecasts of economic growth through June 2011
• promises of investment, particularly in oil infrastructure during end of Q2/beginning of Q3
• presidential elections scheduled for September 2011

Now that we know that events in 2010 built momentum to the scheduled elections, we can create “time windows” through which to examine the late-January revolution and Mubarak’s descent. First, let’s zoom in on the 60 days prior to January 25, 2011. In fact, we can investigate the sentiment of coverage, our metric for the tone of the reporting.

Again, with reporting before January 25, 2011, we see a graph of positive sentiment around the idea of the Muslim Brotherhood as an opposition force to Mubarak’s National Democratic Party establishment. However, there is a follow-on peak of negative sentiment around the Muslim Brotherhood’s antagonism towards Israel.

While these observations are not surprising per sé, the absence of certain dynamics is also telling; there is little, if any, discussion of the Muslim Brotherhood as a source of mobilization or cohesive political opposition. One observer categorizes the MB’s decision to withdraw from the second round of voting as having minimal effect on the legitimacy of parliament.

With the second time window of the 30 days following January 25th, events on the ground moved quickly, but — as we know now — rippled far forward for Egypt. The picture below not only tells the story of those tumultuous weeks, but also foreshadows the conflicted attitudes towards the Muslim Brotherhood.

Muslim Brotherhood Discussed in Wake of January 25, 2011

Some voices back the Brotherhood’s crystallization as a political force (El Baradei), while others set an alarmist tone if the Brotherhood were to govern (Mubarak, McCain). Indeed, in the previous several years, Mubarak would warn Western officials about the Muslim Brotherhood’s intent to establish a theocracy similar to that in Iran. Additionally, we have a few different assessments, that either the MB is not as radical as portrayed (Clapper) or that the MB does not play a central role in post-revolution politics (al-Sayyed). Without making a huge leap, we can intuit that the Muslim Brotherhood is aware of this mixed perception and did not want to appear to lead the charge of revolution, instead working through and behind a consolidated opposition front.

With this context in mind, let’s next answer the question “Exactly who is the Muslim Brotherhood?”

The Network of the Muslim Brotherhood – Relationships and Influence

Even experienced observers professed confusion when trying to understand the inner workings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Recorded Future can produce a network map from the large amounts of unstructured data in text, yielding a visualization of the relationships between players.

Muslim Brotherhood Network - 2009--2011

In maneuvering and analyzing this network map, a few actors emerge because of their proximity to the center: Mohammed Badie and Yusuf al Qaradawi. Badie is a current leader (“Supreme Guide”) of the Brotherhood and Qaradawi is a Qatar-based influential theologian closely associated with the Brotherhood. By hovering over the “Egypt” entity, the other co-occuring actors also highlight.

Focus Network on MB in Egypt

A few more names pop up — notably Mohammed El Baradei and Hosni Mubarak. Additionally, there’s Mohammed Mahdi Akef, a former Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood model comes into focus: the organization, while centralized, is only somewhat dense around its leadership and has bridges to other international communities. Another search focused on these individuals allows us to assess how other actors orbit around the hubs:

Muslim Brotherhood Leadership Network 2002-2012

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Muslim Brotherhood Connections Revolving around Individuals

This investigation reveals that Rashad al Bayoumi is an interesting nexus between Badie and Qaradawi and further inquiry shows that he is a deputy chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood and influential in his own right, though not central. What if we could evaluate how the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership views itself? Below, we’re looking at the same network map, this time drawing only from the Muslim Brotherhood’s own website, Ikwan Online.

Muslim Brotherhood Self-Representation on Ikwan

Among some familiar names (Badie, Akef, etc.), Mohammed Mursy gravitates towards the center. In addition, a list of players to examine (al-Katatni, Ghozlan, al-Shater, Fotouh, el-Erian, Howeidi, and Sawiris) becomes clear. Building a watchlist of these individuals bundles them into one search term of key MB actors.

So, what happened to/with this group after January 25th? Who emerged from the shadows and edges? How does this organization change adapt to changing political circumstances? The forthcoming post will better explore the answer to the last two questions, but here is a quick preview.

Without overstating this map’s sophistication, one can start to discern actors responsible for decisions, respect, experience, communications and rhetoric, authority, and mobilization. Besides a list of people directly involved with the Brotherhood, the map also yields a list of secondary actors — activists, reporters, scholars, and government officials focused on the Muslim Brotherhood. Although it may not always reveal hidden actors, sthe network map visually characterizes the nature and degree of key actors’ ties with one another. In short order, one can develop a picture of the organization’s leadership, influencers, and followers.

Predilection for Prediction: Source Mapping

Analysts often inquire about the methodology and quality of the data collection. To address this challenge, Recorded Future maps the sources of data according to country, topic, or type (mainstream, blog, niche, primary source, etc.), which allows analysts to quickly determine who is credible, correct, and worth following.

Web Sources Reporting on Muslim Brotherhood Leadership

In addition to dividing sources, this view ranks them according to how many events each source reported, first broke, or predicted. Ordering sources by reliability of prediction, an analyst can start to assess the credibility of each: what is the publisher’s agenda, association, and historical accuracy?

The goal is to determine which sources are reporting what type of events, when. Some of the blogs may not break stories but instead just re-publish predictions, whereas wire stories may offer frequent reporting and only occasional forward-looking insight. Taken together, a survey of the sources reporting on the fast-evolving moments following January 25th, and particularly in regards to making predictions, comes into focus.

Below, we find that a relatively unknown blog republishes many wire and news stories, hence, its high ranking. Below that, however, we find BBC News and Iranian-backed Iran Daily, as well as a major Pakistani outlet (Dawn) and Al Jazeera Arabic.

The ability to move back and forth through time makes the process of backtesting forecasts quite straightforward and efficient.

Top Sources MB Leadership

Conclusion — Moving to Qualitative Analysis of Quantitative Data

With Recorded Future, an analyst can move mountains of data with the levers of time, momentum, sentiment, and visualizations. After making conclusions based on manipulation of this data, one can rank and evaluate the credibility of various sources, particularly for future predictions. For example, the process of mapping recognized leadership, influential advisers, and outspoken members of any party takes a significant amount of energy. For a non-expert, however, Recorded Future significantly cuts down the time to become familiar with the key players and their relationships with one another.

But why not just head to Wikipedia and scan the article on Muslim Brotherhood? Or, better, Google it and read a few recent articles and policy papers? The news provides updates, Wikipedia crowdsources background, and policy papers proffer analysis — Recorded Future offers insight about where and when to zoom in on the data.

• In this post, we addressed three key questions:
• How do I figure out what to research and where to start?
• How do I compare windows of time?
• What does the terrain of analysis and sources look like?

For the second post, we’ll used Recorded Future to examine the run up to Egyptian parliamentary polls, creation of a new political party, and subsequent results, focusing on answering three questions for the analyst:

• Where are my topical and temporal blindspots?
• How do I keep an eye on emerging signals?
• How do I correct for the benefit of hindsight when assessing a paradigm shift (e.g. a revolution)?

We’ll be hosting a webinar with security expert Jeffrey Carr where we’ll demonstrate how Recorded Future can be used to gather cyber intelligence from open source.

Date: Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Time: 11am Eastern; 8am Pacific
Duration: 1 Hour

Register online

Topics we’ll cover include:

• How Recorded Future offers the only solution which can immediately harvest, cluster, and surface predictive signals from unstructured text
• How Recorded Future makes available what the world knows about the future by aggregating forecasts and predictive signals from across the web
• How advanced data visualization tools support patterns of behavior research, forecasting, and identification of influential relationships between entities
• How temporal reasoning partnered with entity and event extraction can be used on the public web or in private, secure clouds
• A live demonstration of open source research on cyber threats including the evaluation of state and non-state threats, corporate security measures, and the sequence of events surrounding Iran’s capturing a RQ-170 drone

Pop over to Drew Conway’s blog Zero Intelligence Agents and check out his latest post “Who are the most central members of the China’s leadership as we enter 2012?” Drew is a PhD student in political science at New York University. Drew studies terrorism and armed conflict; using tools from mathematics and computer science to gain a deeper understanding of these phenomena. He analyzed a massive amount of Recorded Future data gathered from open source, did some math magic and came up with a pretty compelling analysis.

Over the last week, much has been written on Iran’s new electronic warfare capabilities. Iran first claimed that it was able to hijack the RQ-170 drone by jamming its GPS signal and landing it remotely. Now there is a new report that suggests that the Iranians may have blinded a US spy satellite. The report suggests that a laser may have been used to temporarily “blind” a satellite that was conducting surveillance overhead. If this is true, the Iranians must have gained access to advanced electronic warfare equipment.

The sudden flurry of reports about Iran’s capabilities makes it seem like this technology was developed overnight. In reality, this type of advanced equipment needs to be acquired from a superpower, and it looks like the Iranians turned to the Russians for help in this department.

View of discussion around Avtobaza reveals connections to Russia

The Russians admitted to selling the Iranians an advanced electronic intelligence system called the Kvant 1L222 Avtobaza. The Avtobaza is intended to be a, “radar jamming station and RF intelligence gathering tool”. A technical analysis of Iran’s ELINT capabilities postulates that the trucks that the Russians sold to Iran may have, “been modded to work in the satellite ranges”. It was the opinion of the report however that the system was likely used only in the RQ-170 incident.

This appears to be a more likely scenario, unless the Iranians were able to modify the equipment given to them by the Russians. The Iranians have been known to interfere with satellite communications in the past, but trying to modify the Avtobaza appears difficult. The Avtobaza was intended, “to detect airborne side-looking radars, air-to ground fire-control radars and low-altitude flight control radars” but not satellite communications. Despite this, a DIY Iranian ELINT system capable of blinding US satellites might be possible.

Emerging Reports on the Russian-built Avtobaza

Do you think the Avtobaza could be used to interfere with satellite communications? Have a look here at the technical specifications. Would you like to follow Iran’s jamming activity or ELINT capabilities? If so, consider taking a look at Recorded Future’s open source intelligence tools.