Current Events in Mideast-Africa

From Flight International DATE: 20/12/07 SOURCE: Flightglobal.com Turkish air force in major attack on Kurdish camps By Tolga Ozbek The Turkish air force launched one of its largest ever strike missions on 16 December, sending more than 50 aircraft to take part in an attack on Kurdish rebel camps 150km (81nm) inside northern Iraq. Flown from Diyarbakir and Malatya air bases, the night-time mission involved 30 Lockheed Martin F-16s equipped with Lockheed Lantirn targeting pods and 20 modernised McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom. Inflight refuelling support was provided by two Boeing KC-135 tankers. Ankara says its fighters deployed 453kg (1,000lb) Mk82 a…

Chicago Tribune April 9, 2007 Musharraf Opposition Galvanizes As protests grow and support weakens for Pakistan's president, the U.S. faces possible loss of crucial ally By Kim Barker and Bay Fang, Tribune correspondents ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- For 27 years, Anwar Khan Afridi served in the Pakistani army. But the retired colonel now plans to mail his eight medals back to the government. He also wants to return his army pension of two plots of land and $313 a month. "I will no longer write anything using the name 'colonel,'" said Afridi, 58, holding his military decorations as he joined 4,000 other protesters outside Pakistan's Supreme Court last week.…

The IAF vs Iran's Nuke Complex

France Carries Out Airstrikes In Mali France Loses Gazelle, Soldier in Air Raid (from Aviation Week, Ares blog)

From Stratfor Two Leaks and the Deepening Iran Crisis By George Friedman | October 5, 2009 Two major leaks occurred this weekend over the Iran matter. In the first, The New York Times published an article reporting that staff at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear oversight group, had published an unreleased report saying that Iran was much more advanced in its nuclear program than the IAEA had thought previously. According to the report, Iran now has all the data needed to design a nuclear weapon. The article added that U.S. intelligence was re-examining the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2007, which had stated that Ira…

Hez Hacked Israeli Radios DefenseTech This is downright shocking, if true. "Hezbollah guerrillas were able to hack into Israeli radio communications during last month's battles in south Lebanon, an intelligence breakthrough that helped them thwart Israeli tank assaults," Newsday reports. Using technology most likely supplied by Iran, special Hezbollah teams monitored the constantly changing radio frequencies of Israeli troops on the ground. That gave guerrillas a picture of Israeli movements, casualty reports and supply routes. It also allowed Hezbollah anti-tank units to more effectively target advancing Israeli armor, according to the officials... T…

Iranian Nuclear Facility Under Cyberattack, Computers Playing AC/DC’s Thunderstruck at Night Yesterday, the security research group F-Secure received a puzzling email claiming to be from a nuclear scientist with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). In it, the author claimed that the country’s nuclear facilities were once again under attack. Only this time, the hackers brought Angus Young along for the ride. F-Secure’s Mikko Hypponen said that a strange new chapter in the ongoing strife over Iran’s nuclear activities may be unfolding. He posted the following email which, although he cannot confirm the veracity of the claims, he does say came from wi…

From Examiner Should the F-117 stealth fighter be transferred to Israel? Part One: The Problem March 14, 9:06 PM Long standing US policy in the Middle East has been to assure the state of Israel that America would guarantee their military a qualitative edge compared to other regional powers- particularly relating to airpower. With the rising threat of Iran, Washington has been equipping other allies in the region with advanced armaments such as precision guided munitions and advanced warplanes. Often, these allies are not friendly to the Israelis, which causes unease in our only “Western” democratic ally in the area. Another major concern for Israel is the li…

Boston Globe April 4, 2007 US Is Said To Advise Militants On Raids In Iran By Reuters WASHINGTON -- The United States has been secretly advising and encouraging a Pakistani militant group that has carried out a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran, ABC News reported yesterday, citing US and Pakistani intelligence sources. The raids have resulted in the deaths or capture of Iranian soldiers and officials, ABC reported. The group, members of the Baluchi tribe, operates from Pakistan's gas-rich province of Baluchistan, just across the border from Iran, the report said. The only relationship with the group that US intelligence acknowledges is…

Pakistan seems to be REALLY stepping it up! Raytheon Announces AMRAAM Sale to Pakistan By WENDELL MINNICK, TAIPEI DefenseNews Pakistan has signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance to procure 500 AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and 200 AIM-9M Sidewinder air-to-air missiles from Raytheon. According to a Jan. 15 Raytheon press release, this is the first AMRAAM missile procurement between Raytheon and Pakistan. “The combined $284 million procurement augments Pakistan’s established inventory and will provide the bulk of the air-to-air fire power of the Pakistan Air Force,” said the release. “This is the largest single purchase of AMRAAM …

From Voice of America [excerpt]

I suppose now that one of the Somali pirates involved in the latest incident has been apprehended, we can expect a hue and cry from various groups wanting to protect his "rights". Hanging has been an effective method of dealing with these guys for centuries, and I see no reason to change that now. Buddha

Al Madinah-class frigate (1985+) destroyed by Houthis near Yemen (Active defenses Crotale NG and 40mm Dardo Compact): https://twitter.com/NatDefFor/status/826127312190111746?s=04

Indian communists protest U.S. naval exercises By Ashok Sharma - The Associated Press Posted : Tuesday Sep 4, 2007 7:19:35 EDT NEW DELHI — Dozens of communists chanted anti-U.S. slogans as they left an eastern Indian city Tuesday for the site of a naval exercise involving India, the U.S. and three other countries, a party official said. “The fight against imperialism will continue,” about 80 party workers in Calcutta shouted as they boarded buses for Vishakhapatnam, a southern port city near the venue of the exercise, set to begin hours later. Twenty-five warships from India, the U.S., Australia, Japan and Singapore are participating in the four-day drill…

From RIA Novosti 15:50 15/02/2011

From Reuters FEATURE-Could Israel use submarines against Iran? Thu Apr 17, 2008 8:04am EDT By Dan Williams HAIFA, Israel, April 17 (Reuters) - Anticipating a showdown with Iran, Israel decides secretly to deploy a submarine off its arch-foe's coast. But how? The quickest route from Israel's Mediterranean coast is via the Suez Canal, which runs through Egypt and which the classified vessels shun. So the submarine is hidden in the belly of a commercial tanker, which delivers it to the Gulf. Such is the plot of an Israeli thriller, "Undersea Diplomacy". Does it hold water? Perhaps not. Then again, the author, Shlomo Erell, is no mere novelist. He's an ex-ad…

From Flight Global [excerpt]

From C4ISR Journal Israel Building New Radar Satellite BY BARBARA OPALL-ROME March 04, 2005 Israel’s Ministry of Defense and Elta Systems Ltd., a subsidiary of government-owned Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), unveiled details of the TecSAR satellite, a low-earth orbiting synthetic aperture radar technology demonstrator planned for launch by the first half of 2006. According to specifications displayed along with a mockup of the satellite during a Feb. 22 seminar at Elta’s headquarters in Ashdod, the satellite will weigh 300 kilograms, including the 100-kilogram SAR payload. The multimode payload employs electronic beam steering, which can be operated in …

N. Korea thanks U.S. for fighting pirates By Burt Herman - The Associated Press Posted : Friday Nov 9, 2007 8:26:16 EST SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea expressed rare gratitude Thursday for U.S. help in ending a high-seas standoff with Somali pirates, a sign of warming ties between the longtime foes fostered by progress on Pyongyang’s nuclear disarmament. The U.S. Navy’s aid to North Korean sailors last week was unprecedented in the half-century of hostility between the Cold War enemies, according to the Naval Historical Center in Washington, D.C. The North’s Korean Central News Agency hailed the maritime collaboration as a “symbol of cooperation” betwee…

From Stratfor Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch? June 23, 2008 By George Friedman On June 20, The New York Times published a report saying that more than 100 Israeli aircraft carried out an exercise in early June over the eastern Mediterranean Sea and Greece. The article pointed out that the distances covered were roughly the distances from Israel to Iranian nuclear sites and that the exercise was a trial run for a large-scale air strike against Iran. On June 21, the British newspaper The Times quoted Israeli military sources as saying that the exercise was a dress rehearsal for an attack on Iran. The Jerusalem Post, in covering these events, …