Russia unleashes ‘dirty tricks’ campaign
Cyber war on Great Britain, United States in response to Saturday’s missile attack on Syrian military targets
LONDON — Russia has launched a “dirty tricks” campaign against Britain and the U.S. following the Syria airstrikes by those two nations and France, as British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson warned of a need to be prepared for retaliatory attacks.
Whitehall sources Sunday night confirmed a 20-fold increase in “disinformation” being spread by Kremlin-linked social media “bot” accounts since the missile attacks on Syria in the early hours of Saturday.
The Pentagon said there had been a surge in Russian “troll” accounts promoting false claims about the missile attacks, including that 70 per cent of the missiles had been shot down. Pentagon spokesman Dana White said: “The Russian disinformation campaign has already begun. There has been a 2,000 per cent increase in Russian trolls in the last 24 hours.”
There are fears this could be a precursor to a full-scale campaign of cyber attacks by Moscow and Johnson said Britain would take “every possible precaution” to guard against it.
It comes as British Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn attempts to
force a House of Commons vote on Syria that could make it harder for Prime Minister Theresa May to mobilize the armed forces without the permission of MPs. Corbyn will ask the speaker Monday to grant an emergency debate that is likely to lead to a vote, which will scrutinize May’s judgment in authorizing the airstrikes.
May will tell the Commons that bombing Syria was in Britain’s “national interest” to prevent future chemical attacks “within Syria, on the streets of the U.K. or elsewhere” as she invokes the Salisbury poisonings as justification for the U.K.’s participation in the U.S.-led strikes.
She will also say “it was the right thing to do” to avert further suffering caused by chemical attacks and “we are not alone — there is broadbased international support for the action we have taken.”
Canada and the rest of NATO have supported the airstrikes. Canada was told in advance the U.S., Britain and France were planning to launch airstrikes against Syria, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday, but was not asked to participate.
“We were apprised in advance of the operation,” Trudeau told reporters. “We were very supportive. And there was no request for Canada to join as part of that operation.”
Russia, which backs the Assad regime in Syria, had repeatedly warned in the buildup to the cruise missile strikes there would be consequences if they went ahead and Johnson told the BBC Russia “gives us every possible signal and evidence that we have to beware.”
Asked if he was worried about cyber attacks on the National Health Service, the National Grid and other infrastructure, he said: “I think we have to take every possible precaution and when you look at what Russia has done, not just in this country in Salisbury but the attacks on TV stations, on the democratic processes, on the critical national infrastructure, of course we have to be very, very cautious indeed.”
A Whitehall source said Russia was engaging in a “dirty tricks” campaign, while government sources said officials would be analyzing Kremlin-linked social-media “bot” accounts in the coming days to assess the extent to which Britain had been targeted by them.
There were, however, genuine questions Sunday over whether the attack by 105 American, British and French missiles had obliterated Assad’s chemical weapons capabilities.
Brig.-Gen. Zaher al-Sakat, who served as head of chemical warfare in the powerful 5th Division of the Syrian military until he defected in 2013, said the most strategic sites — including a depot called Taqsis in the central province of Homs — were not hit in Saturday’s strikes.
He said: “Taqsis depot is what we wanted to be hit. As long as it’s still functioning then they’ll still have chemical weapons and the ability to produce more.”
The 54-year-old, who left the Syrian army and joined the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) after he said he was ordered to carry out a number of chemical attacks on civilians, has maintained contact with officials inside Syria who share intelligence with him. He said Assad had moved equipment away from the sites that were hit because there was sufficient prior warning.