The Intelligence Online revealed in an article entitled Bristol Engineering Service, the Pakistani deep state’s Emirati relay that Dubai-based Bristol, headed by businessman Majid Bashir Ahmed, acts as one of the external tools of Pakistan’s deep state.
It helps connect Islamabad’s defense industries with foreign buyers and boost the country’s stockpile of foreign military equipment.
The Pakistani government announced in June an increase in its defense budget by another 6%, which was good news for Dubai-based Bristol Engineering Services, headed by Pakistani businessman Majid Bashir Ahmed.
According to Intelligence Online sources, the company is one of the most active manufacturers of the Pakistani army and intelligence services, and it started in Pakistan as a partner of many telecommunications companies, such as Ericsson, Hyundai, and Siemens, and the Japanese industrial conglomerates Sumitomo and Marubeni.
It also had a successful experience with the Pakistani Defense Industry and Intelligence Sector.
Bristol Corporation
Ahmed, CEO of Bristol Corporation, played a key role in the delivery of the Badr ships to the Pakistan Navy on May 20 at the Karachi Shipyard. The ship is the third of its kind among four corvettes being built in Pakistan as part of Turkiye’s MILGEM project.
Ahmed was the local representative of the Turkish Asphalt company running the “Pakistan side of the program,” which is supervised by the Turkish Ministry of Defense in Ankara. In addition to setting up an office for Asphalt in Islamabad to follow up on the program, Ahmed was also able to establish good relations within the Pakistan Navy.
Bristol Corporation is one of the biggest supporters of Pakistan’s defense industries abroad and provides legal interception tools to the country’s major intelligence agencies—the ISI, the IB, and the FIA.
The Defense Ministry is counting on Ahmed to find overseas consumers for its fighter jets and its flagship JF-17B fighter model, which was developed through its joint venture with China’s Chengdu Aircraft Group, and some of these fighters have already been sold to the air forces of Burma and Nigeria. It is also a partner of many Chinese defense companies that want to establish themselves in Pakistan.
UAE-Backed Activities
Majid Ahmed has so far lived a life full of twists and turns. In 2009, he was banned from leaving Pakistan after being placed on the Exit Control List (ECL) at the request of the FIA while an investigation into his activities was underway.
Before the investigations and the judicial police, who reported to the Ministry of Interior at a later time, he was forced to remove his name from the list following a decision by the Sindh High Court in Karachi.
He also negotiated with the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) to acquire the Erieye Airborne Early Warning and Command (AEW&C) system from Swedish industrial conglomerate Saab in a $700 million contract.
For this deal, Ahmed relied on his approved partnership with Ericsson, which sold its defense activities to Saab in 2006. While the Air Force continued to equip four of its Saab 2000 aircraft with the Erieye system in 2019, Ahmed’s partnership with Saab ended in 2012.
Ahmed also owns Ireland-based media content creation firm Digital Media Distribution Max with an office in Dubai Media City Free Zone and engineering consultancy DynaFlow Technologies of SA based in the suburbs of Durban. He is also in the process of handing over his empire to his son, who is best known for driving a Rolls-Royce Phantom through the streets of Dubai.
Electronic Penetration
Since Bahamut debuted in 2016, it has adopted a number of names, and BlackBerry researchers have found similarities between many of its aliases. For example, the group attacked security interests and Pakistani newspapers under the slogan “The White Company.”
Hacking group Bahamut has regained its notoriety after BlackBerry Corporation published a report detailing its methods, capabilities, and broad scope.
The report raised serious questions about the possible connection between the group and the United Arab Emirates.
This secret hacking group appears to have quite a few patterns in its attacks, and most Middle Eastern countries have been victims of it. Its well-planned attacks have targeted Turkiye, Qatar, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, with great interest in targeting activists, journalists, and human rights organizations.
The group’s name, Bahamut, refers to a giant sea monster in ancient Arab mythology, in which the earth rests on the head of a bull, standing on top of the Bahamut, which is in turn carried by an angel. The legendary name passed into the English language, becoming the root of the word behemoth (meaning very strong and huge).
BlackBerry’s report also warned of the growing capabilities of cyberwarfare in a rapidly changing the Middle East.
The report was based on a number of previous reports detailing hacking operations that began in 2016. Given the broad range of diverse goals and interests, BlackBerry researchers concluded that the group is most likely a mercenary group for hire, which reflects a skill level that far exceeds most groups of Other known threat actors.
The group uses a variety of methods, including zero-day exploits (weaknesses that the designer of a computer or phone is unaware of) and clever phishing campaigns, which present fake versions of websites or text messages to a user and prompt them to enter their username and password.
BlackBerry reports that Bahamut has also designed apps to hack phones and near-perfect websites that include privacy policies and terms of service. This included applications for video streaming services, call recording, music, prayer times, chat, virtual private networks (VPN), and the Holy Quran.
One of its great strengths is fake news, with the apparent ability to fabricate fake personalities and activists’ profiles and create entire fake news sites that present real news with unobtrusive misinformation.
2022
Source: Alestiklal.net