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Rockets, gunfire test new Russia-backed truce near Syria’s Homs

A boy rides on a tricycle along a damaged street in the besieged area of Homs,

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Warring sides exchanged rocket and gunfire north of the Syrian city of Homs overnight, hours after a Russia-backed truce took effect, a war monitor said on Friday, while heavy rocket fire also marred a similar deal east of the capital Damascus.

Russia, an ally of the Syrian government, said on Thursday its defense ministry and Syria’s opposition had agreed to set up a “de-escalation” zone in the rebel-held countryside north of government-held Homs.

After an initial few hours of calm, the rebels and government forces and their allies began to target each other’s territory. The monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory, said it had so far not received reports of any deaths.

The Russia-backed truce was similar to a de-escalation deal worked out in July for the besieged Eastern Ghouta rebel enclave east of Damascus.

Despite the deal and some reduction in violence, air strikes, rockets and exchanges of fire have continued to hit Eastern Ghouta.

The Syrian Observatory said since the Eastern Ghouta truce was declared on July 22 it had recorded at least 25 civilian deaths, including seven children, and dozens of injuries. Russia said it had deployed its military police in Eastern Ghouta in July to try to enforce the de-escalation zone.

Eastern Ghouta, the only major rebel-held area near the capital, has been blockaded by Syrian government forces since 2013. It has shrunk considerably in size over the past year as the Russia-backed Syrian army has taken control of other rebel-held areas around Damascus.

The Observatory said on Friday around 70 rockets had fallen in 24 hours on Eastern Ghouta in the heaviest bombing since the de-escalation zone was declared.

Several attempts at a lasting ceasefire in western Syria, where rebels have lost ground to government forces and their allies, have collapsed with both sides blaming the other for outbreaks of violence.

 

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Gareth Jones)

 

Foreign hackers probe European critical infrastructure networks

Cables and computers are seen inside a data centre at an office in the heart of the financial district in London, Britain

By Mark Hosenball

LONDON (Reuters) – Cyber attackers are regularly trying to attack data networks connected to critical national infrastructure systems around Europe, according to current and former European government sources with knowledge of the issue.

The sources acknowledged that European infrastructure data networks face regular attacks similar to those which the Washington Post newspaper said on Sunday had been launched by Russian government hackers against business systems of U.S. nuclear power and other companies involved in energy production.

One former senior British security official said it was an “article of faith” that Russian government hackers were seeking to penetrate UK critical infrastructure though the official said he could not cite public case studies.

A European security source acknowledged that UK authorities were aware of the latest reports about infrastructure hacking attempts and that British authorities were in regular contact with other governments over the attacks.

UK authorities declined to comment on the extent of any such attempted or successful attacks in Britain or elsewhere in Europe or to discuss what possible security measures governments and infrastructure operators might be taking.

The Washington Post said recent attempted Russian hacking attacks on infrastructure related systems in the United States appeared to be an effort to “assess” such networks.

But there was no evidence that hackers had actually penetrated or disrupted key systems controlling operations at nuclear plants.

The Post cited several U.S. and industry officials saying that this was the first time hackers associated with the Russian government are known to have tried to get into US nuclear power companies.

The newspaper said that in late June the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the U.S. Homeland Security Department warned energy companies that unnamed foreign hackers were trying to steal login and password information so they could hack into networks.

U.S. officials have acknowledged that many key computer systems which run critical infrastructure ranging from power grids to transportation networks originally were not built with strong security protection against outside hackers.

Security experts in the U.S. and Europe acknowledge that the development and evolution of security measures to protect critical infrastructure system against outside intruders has often run behind the ability of hackers to invent tools to get inside such systems.

 

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)