#4
All of a sudden, all the far left mouthpieces are screaming to kill it. You don't think this is orchestrated? As in "..if they're all against it, it must be a moderate plan, after all - so maybe it should be passed...."
#5
I think it's more like the kids jumping in front of the parade and "Leading" it.
They realise it's going down and want to be shown as "Against" it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/17/2009 18:01 Comments ||
Top||
#6
All I heard was "put me in jail, if you must." BINGO! Keith Olbermann just invited the Feds to imprison him. Christmas came early this year! And then .... throw away the key.
Credit where due, at least some of those will be legitimate jobs created -- and some back home to cover while this bunch are out there.
So you're saying the stimulus worked?
Our peace president seems to be doing better employing war-makers than anyone else...
The surge of 30,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan could be accompanied by a surge of up to 56,000 contractors, vastly expanding the presence of personnel from the U.S. private sector in a war zone, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service.
CRS, which provides background information to members of Congress on a bipartisan basis, said it expects an additional 26,000 to 56,000 contractors to be sent to Afghanistan. That would bring the number of contractors in the country to anywhere from 130,000 to 160,000.
The tally "could increase further if the new [administration] strategy includes a more robust construction and nation building effort," according to the report, which was released Monday and first disclosed on the Web site Talking Points Memo.
The CRS study says contractors made up 69 percent of the Pentagon's personnel in Afghanistan last December, a proportion that "apparently represented the highest recorded percentage of contractors used by the Defense Department in any conflict in the history of the United States." As of September, contractor representation had dropped to 62 percent, as U.S. troop strength increased modestly.
As the Pentagon contracts out activities that previously were carried out by troops in wartime, it has been forced to struggle with new management challenges. "Prior to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, contracting was done on an ad-hoc basis and was not adequately incorporated into the doctrine -- or culture -- of the military," according to the CRS report. Today, according to Defense Department officials, "doctrine and strategy are being updated to incorporate the role of contractors in contingency operations."
The Pentagon's Joint Contracting Command in Afghanistan has increased the size of its acquisition workforce and is adding staff to monitor performance. To enhance oversight, Congress has appropriated $8 million for an electronic system that will track all contract-related information for Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ad-hoc subcommittee on contracting oversight, led by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), is scheduled to hold a hearing on the increase in the number and value of Afghanistan contracts. She plans to focus on ensuring that contracts are adequately managed and "whether contracting oversight lessons learned from Iraq are being applied in Afghanistan," according to her staff members.
Contracts, in the meantime, continue to be solicited and awarded. Over the past week, the military awarded a $44.8 million contract to a Florida firm to provide dogs and their handlers for operational use in areas of southern Afghanistan along the Pakistan border, where some of the most violent fighting is taking place.
The U.S. command in Afghanistan also published a notice that it would be seeking intelligence analyst services from a contractor that include "collecting, analyzing and providing recommendations necessary for the government to produce and disseminate intelligence products in several subject areas." The contract would be for one year, plus options for four additional years.
The Defense Logistics Agency disclosed that it is looking for a contractor that can provide distribution and warehousing services for U.S. and NATO forces in the Kandahar area, which is near the center of fighting. The contractor is to supply the workforce needed to receive, store, inventory and prepare shipment of up to 4,000 items using government-provided warehousing facilities and open storage areas.
[Quqnoos] A roadside bomb hit a convoy of Afghan police, killing five policemen, including a district police chief, in western Afghanistan.
The blast against the police occurred overnight in Robat Sangin district of Herat province, the Afghan Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The attacks signal a rise in the Taliban-led insurgency after US President Barack Obama authorised the deployment of an extra 30,000 troops to turn around the war in Afghanistan.
Poorly-equipped and ill-trained Afghan police have borne the brunt of violence, suffering far more casualties than Western or Afghan army troops.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but roadside bomb attacks on police are a routine tactic of Taliban militants.
The attack occurs two days after 16 policemen were killed in two different parts of Afghanistan in separate attacks.
On Monday, a Taliban attack at a checkpoint in southern Helmand province killed eight policemen. In a different attack, another eight policemen were killed during an assault on a major highway in northeastern Baghlan province.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
ill-trained Afghan police
To no small degree that seems to be a matter of their own choice. To modify the old expression: There are none so ill-trained as those who will not learn.
[ADN Kronos] Algerian authorities have arrested ten suspected members of an Al-Qaeda cell in an anti-terrorism operation in the past two days, news reports said on Wednesday. The suspects were arrested in separate raids in the Algerian capital, Algiers, and in the east of the country, according to reports.
In the anti-terrorism operation in Algiers, police arrested six suspected members of cell linked to the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb - the terror network's African branch. The suspects allegedly gathered "large" sums of money for Al-Qaeda which they had extorted from small businesses on the outskirts of Algiers.
Four more suspects were arrested in Stif, 300 kilometres east of Algiers. They face charges of providing logistical support to armed groups. The four suspects arrested in Stif are originally from Boumerdes, east of Algiers and from Bouira, southeast of the capital, and do not not have previous police records, according to Algerian daily El Khabar.
Algeria's national security directorate has put the country's anti-terror units on high alert and ordered security to be stepped up at checkpoints following intelligence reports that Al-Qaeda is planning terrorist attacks in the capital, El Khabar said.
Al-Qaeda claimed twin bombings in Algiers in December, 2007 that killed that killed 41 people and injured close to 200. The bombs exploded outside Algerian government offices and the office of the United Nations refugee agency in Algiers, killing at least 11 UN employees were killed in the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
At least 120 Houthis have lost lives and 44 others sustained injuries as US fighter jets took part in air strikes in the northwestern Yemeni province of Sa'ada. "The US air force perpetrated an appalling massacre against citizens in the north of Yemen as it launched air raids on various populated areas, markets, refugee camps and villages along with Saudi warplanes," the northern Yemen-based Houthi Shia fighters said.
They added, "The savage crime committed by the US air force shows the real face of the United States. It cancels out much touted American claims of human rights protection, promotion of freedoms of citizens as well as democracy."
The US military continues its air raids on Yemen's northern beleaguered regions of Amran, Hajjah and Sa'ada which have already been the target of joint Saudi-Yemen offensive against the Houthi fighters.
The Saudi air force has further complicated the conflict by launching its own operations against Shia resistance fighters.
Houthi fighters say that Riyadh pounds their positions and that Saudi forces strike Yemeni villages and indiscriminately target civilians. According to the fighters, Saudis use toxic materials, including white phosphorous bombs, against civilians in northern Yemen.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#4
" IF TRUE " It is good practice for the fighter jockeys.
Posted by: Dave UK ||
12/17/2009 6:25 Comments ||
Top||
#5
American jets purchased long ago by Saudi Arabia and piloted by the Saudi Air Force, Dave UK. Imagine how the article would have read had the airplanes been purchased from Belgium...
#9
Kinda tough to see who the pilot is when he's dropping bombs on you. They got pictures of the planes with insignia on them? Didn't think so. But, hey, even Soddy pilots need practice.
#10
The RSAF must really be putting some hurt on these Hou-hous: "American Intervention!" is the standard excuse of last resort for Middle Eastern losers.
A Georgian cargo plane carrying North Korean weapons that was intercepted in Thailand last Saturday was bound for Sudan, reports say. Christian LeMiere, the editor of Jane's Intelligence Weekly, told AP on Tuesday that the aviation path of the plane suggested it was heading to Sudan, where they might have been handed over to armed groups in Somalia through Chad and Eritrea.
Except for the Taepodong parts ...
Siemon Wezeman of the Arms Transfers Project of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, agreed, telling AP that the "types of arms found in the aircraft -- used to add firepower against planes and tanks in the arsenal of government forces -- were typical of those used by insurgent movements, and raised suspicion they could be headed for an African rebel group."
Meanwhile, the Bangkok Post on Tuesday reported that the U.S. had been monitoring the plane by satellite since five Europeans were spotted loading what appeared to be weapons on it in Pyongyang.
Ssssh! Don't tell everyone just how good our cameras are. But the Euros' names were Vlad, Gert, Heinrich, Piotor and Raul ...
Circumstantial evidence suggests the involvement of international arms smugglers. Although the detained cargo plane belongs to Georgian airliner Air West, it was leased to a Ukrainian trade company named SP Trading on Nov. 5. AP said the plane was registered under three companies previously owned by the now-jailed Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, dubbed the "Merchant of Death." Bout is notorious for his leading role in arms deals covering Russia, Ukraine, and Africa.
Figures you'd find Viktor and his fellow Ukrainians at the bottom of this ...
Thai authorities have mobilized over 100 weapons specialists to determine the types and destination of the North Korean weapons found in 145 boxes on the plane. A Thai court on Tuesday rejected a request for bail by the plane's five crew.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/17/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
No doubt paid for by Iran.
Posted by: ed ||
12/17/2009 0:42 Comments ||
Top||
Long-range missile parts have been found in some of the 145 crates containing weapons from North Korea that were seized at a Thai airport Saturday, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The Taepodong-2 components were part of some 40 tons of arms whose destination is as yet unknown.
There's No Dong in Thailand ...
A Thai security official claimed experts believe the weapons were headed to Iran, which has bought arms from North Korea in the past. Security experts say North Korea's Taepodong-2s, which have a maximum range of 6,700 km, were developed jointly with Iran's Shahab 5 and 6 long-range missiles. North Korea test-fired similar missiles in July 2006 and last April. The first test failed when the missile blew up 40 seconds after launch, while in the second it traveled around 3,000 km.
Hardly seems that the Sudanese need a Taepodong; they don't need to reach out and touch anyone like that. So these missile parts were headed to Iran, or maybe Syria.
Meanwhile, the Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun on Dec. 8 claimed North Korea was aiding Iran's development of a cruise missile. An unnamed diplomatic source claimed North Korea and Iran had disassembled and were jointly studying a Soviet-era KH55 cruise missile imported from Ukraine. The missile under development is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and could lead to technological improvements in Middle Eastern and North Korean missile technologies, the unnamed official claimed.
The U.S. accuses Iran of pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program and is believed to have purchased a Taepodong-1 missile from North Korea in the past with a maximum range of 2,500 km. During a test launch in 1998, it flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/17/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Suspected U.S. drone aircraft fired seven missiles on Thursday at militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan region, killing 12 fighters, Pakistani security officials said.
"Seven missiles were fired. They hit a cave complex, a compound and a vehicle," said one of the Pakistani officials, who declined to be identified.
#5
It will be very interesting, indeed, to see how President Obama looks back on his Nobel Peace Prize and his AfPak war as he looks back on his record from the perspective of December 2012, play4keeps... and again what he thinks a generation from now. One only hopes, for his sake, that he doesn't turn out as bitter as former president Carter.
#6
I'm betting it will be worse than Carter. Obama will be this generation's Hoover. And he doesn't have the Quaker background to allow him to deal in a civil fashion with his chickens coming home to roost.
#7
Update:
Al Qaeda Shadow Army Commander Killed In US Strike
A commander in al Qaeda's military organization was among 17 Islamist extremists killed during today's strikes in the Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan in Pakistan.
Zuhaib al Zahibi, a commander in al Qaeda's Shadow Army, or the Lashkar al Zil, was among seven Arab "foreigners" and nine Taliban fighters killed in one of two airstrikes in the Datta Khel region in North Waziristan, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal. Two other Taliban fighters were also killed in an earlier, separate strike in the Datta Khel region.
[Geo News] Security forces engaged and destroyed a vehicle at Miranshah during operation Rah-e-Nijat in South Waziristan, resultantly terrorists' commander Gulbadeen Mehsud was killed.
As per ISPR details, 6 terrorists have been killed during last 24 hours, while 1 soldier embraced shahadat and 6 were injured. Terrorists fired with arms at security forces camp at Sararogha and Shuza Defile which was effectively responded, killing 2 terrorists.
Moreover, forces conducted search operation at Shuza, Aghzar Khel and recovered huge cache of arms and ammunition while army carried out sanitization around Khassadar Ridge.
Meanwhile, security forces conducted search operation in Sultano near Ladha and recovered arms and ammunition. According to the ISPR, forces carried search operation along with Razmak-Ghariom Axis at Umarzai Zhawar and cleared 18 compounds.
Armed forces conducted clearance operation at China and Makeen and recovered cache of arms and ammunition.
On the other hand, terrorist fired rockets at Mana camp, resultantly 1 soldier embraced shahadat and 6 other injured while mosque was damaged.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
[Dawn] The army said Wednesday it had killed 49 insurgents in the northwest, widening the net in the lawless tribal belt.
Ground and air operations hit in the Orakzai and Kurram districts in the centre of the tribal belt, Pakistani officials said.
'At least 18 militants were killed when helicopters pounded Toorikhel town of Orakzai when militants were holding an important meeting,' paramilitary spokesman Major Fazlur Rehman said.
Local administration official Riaz Khan confirmed the toll and said four more people were killed in air strikes in the town of Sultanzai in Orakzai.
The military also mounted a ground and air offensive in Dagar, a town in the Kurram district, killing 21 militants, Rehman said.
In its daily briefing on the South Waziristan operation, the army said Wednesday that six militants and one soldier had been killed in the last 24 hours in raids and clashes in the region
Such death tolls supplied by the military are impossible to confirm independently, with the region out of bounds to media and most aid groups.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
[Asharq al-Aswat] Car bombs and other explosions ripped through Iraq's capital and a major northern city on Tuesday, killing nine people and showing again the ease with which insurgents manage to slip past security.
The explosions in Baghdad and Mosul came exactly a week after suicide bombers killed 127 people and wounded more than 500 in a series of five bombings in the Iraqi capital -- three of which appeared to target government buildings.
The blasts raise fresh questions about the government's ability to protect itself and its citizens as U.S. forces prepare to leave Iraq.
"There were two military checkpoints using detectors at the beginning of the street, how can such car bombs manage to enter and explode?" said a Baghdad woman who identified herself as Um Ali, her cheeks smeared with blood as she screamed at reporters, echoing the frustrations voiced by many Iraqis.
In Baghdad, three car bombs detonated within minutes of each other in different areas near the heavily guarded Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy, the Iraqi parliament and other government buildings.
One of the bombs went off near the Foreign Ministry, which was targeted in an August bombing; two others exploded near the Immigration Ministry and the Iranian Embassy.
Five people were killed and at least 16 wounded, according to Iraqi officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Authorities quickly arrested owners of three parking lots where the bombs exploded, charging them with failing to carefully search the cars and check vehicle registration papers.
Hours later and hundreds of miles away, in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, two more car bombs an a roadside mine killed four people. A doctor at the Mosul general hospital said as many as 40 were wounded in the separate blasts that appeared to target a high-traffic neighborhood and a church.
Mosul is Al Qaeda's last urban stronghold in Iraq.
Baghdad is still reeling from last week's suicide bombings, which mirrored the Aug. 19 and Oct. 25 attacks that targeted government ministries and buildings and left more than 250 people dead.
Together, the three massive bombings have sparked outrage among Iraqi lawmakers who want Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his top aides be held accountable for what they describe as gaping, and continuing, security breaches.
Talking to reporters outside the Green Zone, Parliament Speaker Ayad al-Samarraie denounced Tuesday's explosions in Baghdad and Mosul as "heinous crimes." He lashed out at Iraq's intelligence services, saying that their work "is less than what is needed and it has not risen to the challenges Iraq is facing."
"There must be a firm stance, immediate measures and a review to all security plans," al-Samarraie said.
Thick clouds of black smoke could be seen lingering over the area. Firefighters and neighborhood residents worked to put out fires, while Iraqi security forces fired their guns into the air to disperse growing crowds.
A TV cameraman was injured in one of the blasts as he waited among a group of journalists headed on a government-sponsored trip to a camp housing Iranian exiles near the border with Iran. It was not immediately clear who the cameraman worked for, or the extent of his injuries, said an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
About an hour after the 7:30 a.m. explosions in Baghdad, a joint patrol of Iraqi and U.S. forces discovered and dismantled a fourth car bomb before it exploded, Iraqi authorities said.
The 2009 pickup truck, parked outside a Green Zone gate, was packed with seven bombs that were covered by blankets and cartons, said an Interior Ministry official and a Baghdad police officer. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The U.S. military said it would send forensic and explosive experts to help Iraqi authorities investigate the bombings in Baghdad. Army Lt. Brian Wierzbicki, a U.S. military spokesman did not have any immediate reports of casualties.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombings. Insurgent groups associated with Al Qaeda have claimed responsibility for the earlier bombings, although al-Maliki also has blamed loyalists of former dictator Saddam Hussein.
The attacks have raised serious questions about the abilities of Iraqi security forces ahead of the U.S. withdrawal of combat troops. The American military has warned of a possible rise in violence with insurgents hoping to destabilize the government ahead of the March 7 parliamentary elections.
On Monday, Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obeidi acknowledged shortcomings in the security forces but said insurgents have changed their tactics amid the U.S. troop withdrawal.
"The nature of terrorism has changed, and terrorists are conducting attacks that aim to inflict the largest casualties," al-Obeidi said.
He did not indicate what he meant by changing tactics. However, much of the recent violence has targeted government institutions, an apparent attempt to undermine al-Maliki's government head of the elections, as opposed to violence that appeared designed to spark Shiite-Sunni tensions.
The U.S. has pinned the pace of its withdrawal of combat troops by Aug. 31, 2010.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency
[Asharq al-Aswat] Dozens of Iraqi security force members were involved in attacks that killed up to 112 people in Baghdad last week, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Wednesday.
There is widespread suspicion in Iraq that the police and armed forces have been infiltrated by militants, take bribes to allow insurgents to mount attacks, or may be colluding with militants to undermine Maliki before a March 7 general election. A series of high-profile attacks on supposedly secure government targets have killed hundreds in recent months and eroded Maliki's ability to present himself as the man who turned around Iraqi security, a key plank of his election campaign.
Maliki vowed he would not let ongoing insurgent attacks influence the polls. He said there were at least 45 members of the security forces involved in the Dec. 8 attack.
"The network was a large one, 24 from one arm of the Iraqi security forces, 13 from another, and eight or nine from another."
"The network was a large one, 24 from one arm of the Iraqi security forces, 13 from another, and eight or nine from another," Maliki told a news conference without saying which branch of the security forces those involved came from.
Maliki promised a reward of around $85,500 to anyone who alerting the government to car bombs before they detonate. The reward would "get citizens involved in supporting the security service and remedy its deficiencies", he said.
Large financial rewards have been offered in the past by the U.S. military for information on insurgent leaders.
U.S. combat troops pulled out of urban areas in June, leaving Iraqi forces to take the lead, but bombings have raised renewed questions about the competence of Iraqi security forces as U.S. troops prepare to fully withdraw by the end of 2011.
Still, Maliki said the attacks would not delay the U.S. drawdown, echoing assurances from the U.S. administration that it will not alter plants to end combat operations by Aug. 31 2010 and bring troop levels to 50,000 by then. "As for the effect of these operations on the withdrawal, not at all. The withdrawal has been completely finalised with a defined timetable," he said.
Maliki's comments came days after the interior and defence ministers got a lengthy grilling from lawmakers angry about the spate of high-profile bombings.
In October, bombs near the Justice Ministry and Baghdad governor's offices killed 155 people, and blasts near the Foreign and Finance Ministries in August killed 95.
On Tuesday, more bombings close to Baghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone government complex killed four people.
Maliki's comments add a new dimension to investigations into the Dec. 8 attacks, which the Shi'ite Muslim-led government initially blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's banned Sunni-dominated Baath party.
Some believe political jockeying between Iraq's fractious ethnic and sectarian groups ahead of the March polls has given insurgents an opportunity to stage more high-impact attacks.
Overall violence in Iraq has fallen sharply since the worst of the sectarian bloodshed unleashed after the 2003 U.S. invasion.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
There is widespread suspicion in Iraq that the police and armed forces have been infiltrated by militants, take bribes to allow insurgents to mount attacks, or may be colluding with militants to undermine Maliki before a March 7 general election
[Ma'an] Israeli media sources said an explosion in the Gaza border town of Sderot were caused by projectiles fired from Gaza at the area Wednesday night.
The reports could not be confirmed by Palestinian sources. No Palestinian faction working in Gaza claimed to have fired projectiles on Wednesday. Israel's online news site Ynet reported an unidentified source as saying two projectiles landed in open fields south of the town.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
A toddler and her father were among five Muslims killed in the latest bout of violence in Thailand's restive south, police said Thursday.
The two-year-old and her father, an assistant village chief, were shot as they travelled home by motorcycle in Yala province on Wednesday night. As relatives tried to rush them to hospital for treatment, authorities mistook them for militants and opened fire on the vehicle, wounding two others inside. The assistant chief and his daughter died before reaching the hospital, police said.
Earlier in the day a 51-year-old villager was shot and killed as he sat outside his house in Narathiwat province.
A 23-year-old terrorist militant was also killed Wednesday in a clash between security forces and insurgents in Yala district, police said. Shortly after midnight a volunteer member of a civilian defence force, aged 24, was shot dead in the same province on his way home from work.
Five soldiers were injured in a bomb explosion in Yarang district of Pattani province in Thursday morning, police reported. The attack happened about 8am while nine soldiers from the Pattani Task Force were patrolling in a vehicle along the Prikri - Klong Mai road near Khok Ya Kha village in tambon Klong Mai. A bomb estimated at about 15 kilogramme planted on the road was detonated as the vehicle passed the spot. Five soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously.The explosion left a big hole on the road. The vehicle skidded off the road and hit a tree.
Iran reportedly arrested a Western spy seeking to gather information on a nascent Iranian nuclear enrichment facility in central parts of the country.
According to a report by Israel's Channel 2, the spy operated undercover within Iran's new nuclear enrichment plant in Fordo when he was arrested two months ago.
The Israeli channel's report did not specify the nationality of the alleged secret agent.
The report comes as the Tehran government has not made any announcement about the arrest of a spy on Iranian soil.
Meanwhile according to Israel's Hebrew Radio, an Israeli official has confirmed the alleged agent's arrest.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
The Israeli channel's report did not specify the nationality of the alleged secret agent.
That statement ensures it's NOT American, Israeli, or british.
If it was the loudspeakers would be melting from overload as they screamed to the high Heavens.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/17/2009 22:16 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Commands had better be encrypted, but video takes more bandwidth. More delay time. You're bouncing stuff from across the world to a controller somewhere not in the region and it already delays fractionally in transmission even at the speed of light.
So, they get to see themselves just before the big surprise is delivered. Maybe they'll hold up a sign [in English] 'Innocent Women and Children' or 'Baby Ducks, Puppies and Unicorns'.
#6
oughtta post some Apacheclips showing fellow Jihadis tasting chaingun and hellfire love, might make them wonder what the hell they got themselves into and where that drone was...
good for morale ...not
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/17/2009 11:17 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Another reason why our military channels on the Internet should have been secured properly before gore released the whole thing to the general public.
#10
Exactly - it's not like no reporter, ever, like, MADE SHIT UP. Let's see a video of this alleged pwnage in progress, or file it with gerbil warmening...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/17/2009 11:47 Comments ||
Top||
#11
a relatively simple subroutine would provide the 'lurking interested viewer' with a dummy video
maybe they've already done this
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/17/2009 12:16 Comments ||
Top||
#12
The Skygrabber technology seems to intercept the video feeds directly. Unless the drone is transmitting one signal down for bad-guy consumption, and another up to a satellite for good-guy consumption, it seems almost certain that they are intercepting the actual video feed, not something else. In order to accomplish the "something else", it would take more computing horsepower than to simply encrypt the data, which should take no more than a few milliseconds delay, at a power of no more than a few watts, which is less than peanuts compared to the power those things have to expend to keep themselves in the air. As much as we would all like to believe we have out-psyched them, I doubt it is real.
Encrypt the data and be done with it. One missed target would make this cost-cutting measure not worth it.
And the bad guys could use this information not only to benefit themselves, but to harm US efforts by managing to get civilians into the line of fire perhaps, or some other clever way they think of.
#14
The CIA/USAF Predator and the bigger Global Hawk drones send their video and sensor data back to their controllers via a satellite link. I'd wager the Skygrabber is intercepting video from some of the smaller drones the Army and USMC are using that are controlled locally. Those would broadcast video non-directionally with the control commands encrypted.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2009 14:05 Comments ||
Top||
#15
The SkyGrabber description says it is a satellite downlink Internet Protocol filter. So if it sees any drone video, it would be from the large Predator type feeds. I remember in Bosnia Predator feeds were not encrypted but thought that was corrected long ago.
Actually, there is no excuse that Predator drones, often running very sensitive missions, are not strongly encrypted. It's just an IP data stream (as SkyGrabber intercept implies). You can buy a any of a number of chips to do that.
In the small UAVs, it may be a power and weight issue, but not in the large drones.
Posted by: ed ||
12/17/2009 14:47 Comments ||
Top||
#16
Simple solution - just intermix the Drone's standard feed with the feed from the Playboy channel. It keeps the boys back home awake and causes the muzzie's heads [both major and minor] to explode.
#17
I don't know what this Skygrabber thingy is, but it seems like it is only a baseband protocol processor. An address filter to pull out a particular channel? You would still need a Ku band receiver with spread spectrum modem, FEC decoder, de-interleaver, etc. to get you to the MPEG streams. A lot of that can be done in a software radio, but software radios cost more than $25. And you would have to reverse engineer the Predator modem to program the software radio.
Posted by: Number 673927 ||
12/17/2009 18:10 Comments ||
Top||
The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control. The U.S. government has known about the flaw since the U.S. campaign in Bosnia in the 1990s, current and former officials said. But the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it, the officials said.
Last December, U.S. military personnel in Iraq discovered copies of Predator drone feeds on a laptop belonging to a Shiite militant, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.
"There was evidence this was not a one-time deal," this person said. The U.S. accuses Iran of providing weapons, money and training to Shiite fighters in Iraq, a charge that Tehran has long denied.--
#19
Other articles mention that the US has known of this for over a year and encryption has been used in recent months in combat zones, updates to all are proceeding. Who knows about spoofing. Thankfully this wasn't broken at the time, there has been time to address the problem quietly.
#21
The US military has fixed a problem that allowed Iraqi militants to use cheap software to intercept the video feeds of US-operated drones, a defense official said on Thursday. "This is an old issue that's been addressed," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters. The problem has been "taken care of," he said.
Posted by: ed ||
12/17/2009 23:32 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[ADN Kronos] Algerian authorities have arrested ten suspected members of an Al-Qaeda cell in an anti-terrorism operation in the past two days, news reports said on Wednesday. The suspects were arrested in separate raids in the Algerian capital, Algiers, and in the east of the country, according to reports.
At least 120 Houthis have lost lives and 44 others sustained injuries as US fighter jets took part in air strikes in the northwestern Yemeni province of Sa'ada. "The US air force perpetrated an appalling massacre against citizens in the north of Yemen as it launched air raids on various populated areas, markets, refugee camps and villages along with Saudi warplanes," the northern Yemen-based Houthi Shia fighters said. 
[Asharq al-Aswat] Dozens of Iraqi security force members were involved in attacks that killed up to 112 people in Baghdad last week, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Wednesday.
[Ma'an] Israeli media sources said an explosion in the Gaza border town of Sderot were caused by projectiles fired from Gaza at the area Wednesday night.
