Friday, November 25, 2011

British Fallen Heroes return to UK (+video)

Friday, 25 November, 2011.

The bodies of the four servicemen were flown to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.


were killed by explosions in Helmand province. After a private ceremony for their families at a purpose-built repatriation centre on the air base at Brize the cortege left and gas been escorted at walking pace past the memorial garden in Carterton, where the Union Flag hangs at half-mast. All four families have paid tribute, saying they were immensely proud of what the soldiers had achieved, living life to the full, and committing themselves fully to their army careers, and dying doing something they loved and believed in.

Triple bombings in south Iraq kill 19, injure 64

iraqviolence

Nov 24, 2:28 PM EST


BASRA, Iraq (AP) -- A string of bombings in a southern oil city killed 19 people Thursday evening and injured dozens more, a grim sign of the security challenges Iraq will face after American troops go home.
The U.S. military is drawing down its troops ahead of an end-of-December deadline to have all American forces out of the country. Incidents like Thursday's triple bombing in a city seen as key to Iraq's economic development show the dangerous prospects awaiting Iraqis next year.
Three bombs went off in a popular open-air market in Basra, police and health officials said.
The third bomb exploded a few minutes after Iraqi army and police forces arrived on the scene in response to the earlier blasts, officials said. The third blast caused all the fatalities and almost all of the injuries, the officials said.

Read more: http://ap.stripes.com/dynamic/stories/M/ML_IRAQ?SITE=DCSAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-11-24-14-28-41

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Dutch man suspected of attempting attacks on US soldiers in Afghanistan resists extradition

AMSTERDAM (AP) — A lawyer for a Dutch man wanted by the U.S. on suspicion of trying to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan and for allegedly aiding al-Qaida said Friday he has appealed to the Netherlands' Supreme Court to prevent his client's extradition.

The 24-year-old suspect, identified under Dutch privacy laws only as "Sabir K.," was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on June 22. But his extradition case was held behind closed doors in the Netherlands and no information about it was released until his lawyer Andre Seebregts sought publicity.


He said Sabir K. is invoking his right to remain silent about his guilt or innocence.
 ...


Thanksgiving MRE

Thanksgiving at Iraq....

Airmen stationed at Sather Air Base in Iraq ate a Thanksgiving meal of MREs to show solidarity for the airmen at Ali Base who chose to have their Thanksgiving meal early, on the last day their dining facility served hot meals.

U.S. intensifies its proxy fight against al-Shabab in Somalia

The Obama administration is intensifying its campaign against an al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia by boosting the number of proxy forces in the war-torn country, expanding drone operations and strengthening military partnerships throughout the region.
In many ways, the American role in the long-running conflict in Somalia is shaping up as the opposite of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: relatively inexpensive, with limited or hidden U.S. footprints.

While the White House has embraced the strategy as a model for dealing with failed states or places inherently hostile to an American presence, the indirect approach carries risks. Chief among them is a lack of control over the proxy forces from Uganda, Burundi and Somalia, as well as other regional partners that Washington has courted and financed in recent years.
All told, the United States has spent more than $500 million since 2007 to train and equip East African forces in an attempt to fight terrorism and bring a measure of stability to Somalia.
 ...

Story By , Friday, November 25, 12:56 AM

from The Washington Post

Read More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-intensifies-its-proxy-fight-against-al-shabab-in-somalia/2011/11/21/gIQAVLyNtN_story.html

U.S., Afghan forces share Thanksgiving dinner (+video)

One Army unit in the Southeastern Paktika Province of Afghanistan is - for the first time - sharing Thanksgiving dinner with the Afghan forces that fight alongside them on the battlefield. Mandy Clark reports.



Thursday, November 24, 2011

Iran Claims Arrest of 12 CIA, Mossad Agents


reposted from WOTN 
---
11/24/2011 By David Lev

An Iranian official said that Tehran has arrested 12 people whom it claims are “CIA agents” who worked in coordination with the Mossad.


An Iranian official said that Tehran has arrested 12 people whom it claims are “CIA agents” - and that they had working in coordination with the Mossad and other security agencies. Parviz Sorouri, a member of the Iran government's foreign policy and national security committee, was quoted in Iranian media Wednesday as saying that “The U.S. and Zionist regime's espionage apparatuses were trying to damage Iran both from inside and outside with a heavy blow, using regional intelligence services. Fortunately, with swift reaction by the Iranian intelligence department, the actions failed to bear fruit," Sorouri said.



According to a report by an international news agency, the twelve are residents of Iran who received payment for reporting to the CIA on Iran's nuclear program. ABC News reported that U.S. officials are concerned over the “sloppy handling” of intelligence assets by handlers; besides the latest arrests in Iran, an alleged CIA spy ring was recently broken up in Lebanon by Hizbullah terrorists.

In June, Hizbullah chief terrorist Hassan Nasrallah said that several CIA spies who had infiltrated the terror group had been arrested. The U.S. denied that those captured worked for the CIA, but sources in the Obama administration were quoted as saying that Nasrallah “wasn't lying.”

Commenting on the arrests, a CIA official told ABC News that “Espionage is a risky business. Many risks lead to wins, but some result in occasional setbacks," the official said. Officials said they believed that the group captured in Lebanon were executed shortly after they were caught; in Iran, they said, a show trial is likely first, after which the 12 will be executed.

“Collecting sensitive information on adversaries who are aggressively trying to uncover spies in their midst will always be fraught with risk," the official told ABC.

  (c) Israel National News

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Ten Afghans killed in Taliban ambush on Nato convoy

Thursday, November 24, 2011 - At least 10 Afghan security guards were killed Thursday when Taliban militants ambushed a logistics convoy destined for US-led NATO forces in western Afghanistan, a local official said.

The guards were securing the convoy when they came under attack in Bakwa district of Farah province, on the main highway connecting the west to the volatile south, said Naqibullah Farahi, a spokesman for the provincial governor.


"Ten security guards have been killed and seven others injured in the Taliban ambush," Farahi said, adding that the militants also torched nine trucks carrying the supplies for foreign troops.
A spokesman for Afghan police in the west of the country, Abdul Rauf Ahmadi, said police were immediately deployed to the area to hunt down the attackers.

AF Fielding new Ground Penetrator Bomb

A B-2 Spirit soars after a refueling mission o...Image via Wikipedia
The belly of the beast known as the B-2 bomber is about to cradle a new creation.
And what a thing it is: two basketball rims high, heavier than six Ford F-150s and with a name only a janitor could love.


The belly of the beast known as the B-2 bomber is about to cradle a new creation.
And what a thing it is: two basketball rims high, heavier than six Ford F-150s and with a name only a janitor could love.
MOP being offloaded in preparation for its fir...Image via Wikipedia
The freshly tested Massive Ordnance Penetrator is built to rip deeper into underground, hardened targets than anything ever devised. The bomb has 10 times the explosive power of the last model of bunker buster, the BLU-109.
Years in the works, it's now officially a big scary piece in the tense political-military chess being played around the Iranian nuclear program. News of the MOP's readiness came soon after a United Nations agency warning of Iran's secret work toward nuclear weaponry, hidden in steel and concrete complexes, some tunneled into mountains.
"It's named for 'mopping up Iran,'" suggested John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a website for military policy research. "I can't imagine what else they'd being using it for or pointing it at.
"They've been thinking about building such a thing for some time. Once they were able to come up with a design, it was just a matter of time before they built it," he said. A good part of the 20-foot weapon is the 2.5 tons of high explosive, but "the nose is just a solid piece of steel. It has a fuse, but that's not in the nose."

Read more: www.military.com/news/article/af-fielding-new-ground-penetrator-bomb.html
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Four protesters killed, 25 injured in clashes with Yemeni gov't forces in Sanaa


SANAA, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) --
 At least four protesters were killed and 25 others were injured on Thursday in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, when forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh intercepted the anti-government marches by opening fire, doctor Mohamed al-Qubati at the anti-government sin-in square told Xinhua.

The protesters, calling for prosecuting the president, marched in the Zubairy street in central Sanaa, and clashed with Saleh's loyalists one day after the embattled president signed a Gulf- brokered power transfer deal in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh.

Under the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) deal, which Saleh had previously backed away three times at the last minute from signing it, the president would resign and hand over power to his deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in return for immunity from prosecution.

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