• The two-track Syria strategy of Iran and Hezbollah

    For Iran and Hezbollah, the preservation of Bashar Assad regime is of supreme strategic importance, but both realize the regime may not survive. Iran and Hezbollah, therefore, employ two parallel strategic tracks. The first, immediate track aims to prop up the Assad regime’s ability to survive and continue governing by providing it with military, economic, political, and propaganda support. The second track, planned as an intermediate- and long-term strategy, aims to make it possible for Syria’s Shi’ites and Alawites to defend themselves by creating a “popular army.” To help the first track, Hezbollah has sent thousands of its best fighters to fight on the side of the Assad regime and help the regime keep its hold over areas in northwest Syria. To advance the second track, Hezbollah, with Iranian funding, is helping the Assad regime build and train a popular army of about 150,000 Alawite and Shi’a soldiers. This army will protect the interests of the Alawite and Shi’a communities – and the interests of Iran and Hezbollah — in Syria if the Assad regime falls.

  • Highly sensitive polymer detects IEDs

    A chemical which is often the key ingredient in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) can be quickly and safely detected in trace amounts by a new polymer created by a team of Cornell University chemists. The polymer, which potentially could be used in low-cost, handheld explosive detectors and could supplement or replace bomb-sniffing dogs.

  • France weighing military options after French lab confirms Syrian use of sarin gas

    Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, said yesterday (Tuesday) that samples taken from Syria and tested in France confirm that sarin gas has been used by the Assad regime in several attacks in March and April. The U.K. Foreign Office said that samples from Syrian victims tested in British labs also confirmed the use of sarin. A UN investigative panel released its report yesterday, saying its experts had “reasonable grounds” to suspect small-scale use of toxic chemicals. Fabius said that France was not ruling out a military strike on the place where the gas is being stored.

  • Lawmaker wants more Bin Laden documents declassified

    There were so many documents seized by U.S. Special Forces in the 2011 raid on Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan have been, that official described them as the equivalent of “a small college library,” but two years after the raid, only seventeen documents are public. Representative Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wants the documents declassified. Leaders of the U.S. intelligence community do not think it is a good idea.

  • Laser-driven neutrons to detect nuclear smuggling

    Researchers have successfully demonstrated for the first time that laser-generated neutrons can be enlisted as a useful tool in the war on terror, as Los Alamos shows first nuclear material detection by single short-pulse-laser-driven neutron source.

  • McCain: military aid to rebels, no-fly zone necessary as Assad gaining “upper hand”

    Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) said it is “ludicrous” to believe that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad would negotiate a diplomatic solution to the county’s civil war at an upcoming summit. McCain says that providing military aid to the anti-Assad rebels and imposing a no-fly zone over Syria would more likely yield results than a summit meeting in Geneva. 

  • Former CIA chief: NYPD surveillance would have prevented Boston-like attacks

    Former CIA director Michael Hayden said a terror attack like the Boston Marathon bombings would never have taken place in New York City. Hayden, who also headed the National Security Agency (NSA), said the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) broad campaign of spying on the Muslim communities in the city would have helped officials identify the radical tendencies of the alleged bombers, thus preventing the attack.

  • Game changer: Russia to supply Syria with advanced S-300 air-defense systems

    In what should be regarded as a major victory for Iran and its two regional allies, Syria and Hezbollah, Russia has announced it would provide Syria with advanced S-300 air defense missiles. The United States, Israel, and EU and NATO countries have been vigorously, and anxiously, pressing Russia not to go ahead with the sale of the missiles, because the deployment of the S-300 would make the imposition of a no-fly zone over Syria, let alone air attacks on targets inside Syria — like the ones Israel conducted in late January and early May — much costlier.

  • McCain meets with Syrian rebel leaders in Syria

    Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) on Monday, Memorial Day, met with Syrian rebel leaders. McCain’s visit makes him the highest ranking U.S. official to enter Syria since the civil war began in 2011.Rebel commanders asked that the U.S. consider providing heavy arms to the Free Syrian Army, set up a no-fly zone in Syria, and conduct airstrikes on Hezbollah. McCain, for his part, asked the rebels how they planned to reduce the presence of Islamic extremists in rebel ranks.

  • Biometric technology identifies one of the Boston Marathon bombers

    In a study which evaluated some of the latest in automatic facial recognition technology, researchers were able quickly to identify one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects from law enforcement video, an experiment that demonstrated the value of such technology.

  • New Obama policy sets higher standards for drone use

    In a major policy speech Thursday, President Obama announced plans to set higher standards for the use of drones in the fight against terrorists. He defended the use of the unmanned vehicles in that war, however, including when, in extreme situations, they are used to kill American citizens.

  • Terrorists kill British soldier in London in broad daylight

    Two men – one a British-born Nigerian, the other a naturalized Nigerian – yesterday attacked and killed a British soldier in broad daylight outside his London barracks. The used meat cleavers and knives. The attack was caught on the smartphones of passersby. The attackers stayed near the body until the police arrived, explaining their violence to n-lookers: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” one of them said.

  • Court upholds CIA’s decision not to release post-raid Bin Laden photos

    A federal appeals court on Tuesday unanimously ruled that the U.S. government does not have to release more than fifty images and a video of Osama Bin Laden, taken after his death. “It is undisputed that the government is withholding the images not to shield wrongdoing or avoid embarrassment, but rather to prevent the killing of Americans and violence against American interests,” the judges said.

  • Oregon drills first responders for bioterrorism attack

    A three day drill called the Portland Area Capabilities Exercise (PACE), simulating a terrorist attack involving a biological weapon, will take place across fifty different facilities and sixty-five jurisdictions in the state of Oregon.

  • Ricin can kill, but there are more potent bioterror weapons

    Ricin was in the headlines a few weeks ago, when envelopes containing the poison were mailed to President Obama, Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), and a Mississippi judge. The threat from ricin is low, however, because ricin cannot poison someone through contact with the skin. To be poisoned, an individual would have to ingest or inhale traces of the poison.