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Pentagon selects Lockheed martin to replace L-3 to provide maintenance and critical infrastructure support to U.S. Special Operations Command
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Country watch: Moribund Mexico
Mexico is spinning out of control; narco-terrorists have infiltrated the Mexican government, creating a shadow regime that complicates efforts to contain and destroy the drug cartels; Mexico ranks behind only Pakistan and Iran as a top U.S. national security concern — but above Afghanistan and Iraq
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As a result of the Mumbai attacks, the Indian private security industry has been growing by leaps and bounds; already the country’s private security force numbers 5 million, 1.3 million more than India’s police forces
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Eye on Afghanistan
Lt. Gen. (Ret.) David Barno, the former head of coalition forces in Afghanistan, says Afghan war will last until 2025; testimony before a congressional panel opens window to Obama administration’s counterinsurgency approach to war
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Pakistani perplexities // Analysis
Using information partly supplied by the FBI, Indian police says the ten Islamist militants who rampaged through Mumbai spoke to their handlers in Pakistan during the attacks via mobile phones connected to Callphonex, an Internet telephony provider based in New Jersey; communication was facilitated by Col. Saadat Ullah of Pakistan Army’s Special Communications Organization (SCO), an offshoot of the signals corps
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New Mexico company awarded a contract to develop the “foam-based vehicle arresting system,” which could stop a car or a truck before it gets close enough to do real damage
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As I Was Saying // Ben Frankel
The U.S. military and elements in the Pakistani national security establishments collaborate much more closely than in the past; the strategy of General David Patreus and the new Obama administration is to recognize that Pakistan is a fractured, divided country, and to work with those elements closer to us
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To improve on X-ray and millimeter-wave scanning and go beyond group profiling, some suggest screening passengers for hostile intentions
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Eye on Afghanistan -- Analysis // Ben Frankel
A 7 February UAV strike on targets inside Pakistan killed 30; it was the fifth such attack since the beginning of the year — and the second since Obama took office; there were two things different about this attack: Its main target was a Pakistani insurgent leader, and it was launched from inside Pakistan
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Eye on Afghanistan
Shamsi airbase lies in a sparsely populated area about 190 miles southwest of the city of Quetta; it is also 100 miles south of the border with Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand and about 100 miles east of the border with Iran
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Iran watch
Iran says it has developed a UAV with a range of more than 950 kilometers; it is not yet clear what electronic and other capabilities Iran has mounted on the drone
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The number of cyber attacks on U.S. government computers and networks grow; there were 5,488 tracked incidents of unauthorized access to U.S. government computers and installations of hostile programs in 2008, compared to 3,928 such incidents in 2007, and 2,172 in 2006
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Security experts say U.S. and NATO forces are not likely to defeat the Taliban and other insurgent groups on their own; closer cooperation with Afghan tribes and local organizations is essential
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Counter Terror Expo round-up
Electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, has been typically associated with high-altitude nuclear explosions — explosions which disable electronic devices hundreds of miles away from the explosion; militaries and law enforcement want a hand-grenade-size EMP device for use in war and crime-fighting
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In the face of irrefutable evidence, Pakistan admits the 26 November attacks in Mumbai, in which more than 180 people were killed, were planned on Pakistani soil and carried out by Pakistanis
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The U.S. Army is looking for a stun grenade which would subdue targets by releasing a shower of high-velocity rubber pellets
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Former assistant chief of U.K.’s MI6 says pandemics posed more of threat to the U.K. population than terrorism; he also says that privacy worries about the international counterterrorist databases are exaggerated
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India is paying more attention — much more attention — to homeland security in the wake of the November 2008 Mumbai bombing; among the first priorities is securing the very long coast lines of the country; Raytheon, already a presence in India, stands to benefit
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The United States has launched some 40 UAV-carried missile attacks inside Pakistan in the last year; during the presidential campaign, Obama supported such attacks; Secretary of Defense Bob Gates says these attacks will intensify; is it a good idea?
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Sometime in the near future a lethal combination of transnational terrorism and criminal gangs is going to cross the U.S. border in force
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The long view
Patriots’ Day: How Far-Right Groups Hijack History and Patriotic Symbols to Advance Their Cause, According to an Expert on Extremism
Extremist groups have attempted to change the meaning of freedom and liberty embedded in Patriots’ Day — a commemoration of the battles of Lexington and Concord – to serve their far-right rhetoric, recruitment, and radicalization. Understanding how patriotic symbols can be exploited offers important insights into how historical narratives may be manipulated, potentially leading to harmful consequences in American society.
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”
“Tulsi Gabbard as US Intelligence Chief Would Undermine Efforts Against the Spread of Chemical and Biological Weapons”: Expert
The Senate, along party lines, last week confirmed Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National intelligence. One expert on biological and chemical weapons says that Gabbard’s “longstanding history of parroting Russian propaganda talking points, unfounded claims about Syria’s use of chemical weapons, and conspiracy theories all in efforts to undermine the quality of the community she now leads” make her confirmation a “national security malpractice.”