Iraq Car Bombing Kills 5 U.S. Soldiers

A truck bombing in northern Iraq killed five U.S. soldiers and two Iraqi policemen today, making it the deadliest attack on U.S. soldiers in 13 months—and adding to concerns that violence in some parts of the country is on the upswing just as the United States tries to begin withdrawing from the country.

The attack, which took place at the Iraqi National Police Headquarters in Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city, comes on the heels of a particularly bloody few days. Most of the violence had been focused in Baghdad, where more than 50 people were killed in bombings this week. One of those attacks took place just hours before a surprise visit by President Barack Obama, who stopped in Iraq on his way back from Europe and discussed his planned drawdown with U.S. commanders. “Overall, violence continues to be down. There’s been movement on important political questions,” the president told reporters on the stop. “But we have been reminded that there’s more work to do.”

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Electromagnetic Pulse E-Bombs Could Go Mainstream

E-bombs, weapons that destroy electronics with an intense pulse of electromagnetic radiation, have been discussed for decades. But despite years of research and development, there is little sign of their deployment. The prospect of knocking out communications and other electronic systems is attractive, but commanders prefer proven weapons with known effects. Now the U.S. Army is developing technology to provide the best of both worlds, by creating munitions that combine conventional and e-bomb effects in one package.

Explosive munitions rely on blast, fragmentation and sometimes armor-piercing shaped charges for their effects. Researchers want to add an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) damage mechanism as well. This is in contrast to previous e-bomb projects that were intended to be nonlethal so they could destroy materiel without causing casualties. The Army program seeks to enhance existing warheads, adding the feature without affecting blast, fragmentation or armor penetration, and with minimal extra weight.

The power supply in traditional e-bomb design is a magnetic flux compression generator with metal coils carrying current. The coils rapidly compress in an explosion, producing an intense pulse of energy. The generator is bulky and cannot easily be integrated into existing munitions.

An alternative approach explored by the Army is a shockwave ferromagnetic generator. This is a magnet that blows up and spontaneously demagnetizes, releasing energy as a pulse of power. The effect is known as pressure-induced magnetic phase transition, and only occurs with some types of magnets in certain situations. In 2005, researchers from the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center (Amrdec), working with contractor Loki and scientists from Texas Tech University, demonstrated an explosive pulsed-power source based on neodymium alloy magnets, a type used in speakers and headphones.

Having proven that the principle works, the researchers moved on to more exotic lead zirconate titanate magnets. This enabled them to reduce the volume of the power generator from 50 cu. cm. (3 cu. in.) to 3 cu. cm., excluding explosives. Army requirements call for assembly of the power generator, power conditioning and aerial in a 1-in. space. Power output will be measured in hundreds of megawatts for microseconds.

The aerial needed to shape and direct the electromagnetic energy is an engineering challenge, due to the intense force of the explosion and the size required. Allen Stults of Amrdec is working on a “conducting aerosol plasma warhead.” A flame conducts electricity due to the presence of charged particles in it. By altering the chemical mixture of a fireball produced by an explosion, Stults aims to turn it into an electrically conductive aerial, a “plasma antenna.”

via E-Bombs Could Go Mainstream | AVIATION WEEK.

Drug Cartels New Weapons Pushes Mexico Towards Edge

It was a brazen assault, not just because it targeted the city’s police station, but for the choice of weapon: grenades.

The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico’s drug wars. Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.

Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semiauto- matic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

The proliferation of heavier armaments points to a menacing new stage in the Mexican government’s 2-year-old war against drug organizations, which are evolving into a more militarized force prepared to take on Mexican army troops, deployed by the thousands, as well as to attack each other.

These groups appear to be taking advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders, especially between Mexico and Guatemala. Some of the weapons are left over from the wars that the United States helped fight in Central America, U.S. officials said.

“There is an arms race between the cartels,” said Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government.

“One group gets rocket-propelled grenades, the other has to have them.”

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Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps Around the U.S.

Watch The Trailer Here

Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps Around the U.S. premiered On February 11, 2009, at 7:30 pm. at the Landmark Theater in Washington, DC.

According to the press release, “The American public was never supposed to know. The 2006 Justice Department document that exposes 35 terrorist training compounds in the U.S. was marked “Dissemination Restricted to Law Enforcement.” All the copies of Sheik Muburak Gilani’s terrorist training video, “Soldiers of Allah,” had been confiscated and sealed, all of them, that is, except one that Christian Action Network now reveals in the documentary Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps Around the U.S.” Read more

Strategic Shock – Report Warns Unexpected Crisis Could Lead To Massive Unrest

The United States could be sleep-walking into its next crisis, a military report said.

The report by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Institute, said that a defense community paralyzed by conventional thinking could be unprepared to help the United States cope with a series of unexpected crises that would rival the Al Qaida strikes in 2001, termed a “strategic shock.”

The report cited the prospect of the collapse of a nuclear state leading to massive unrest in the United States.

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” the report, authored by [Ret.] Lt. Col. Nathan Freir, said.

“Deliberate employment of weapons of mass destruction or other catastrophic capabilities, unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters are all paths to disruptive domestic shock.”

Titled “Known Unknowns: Unconventional Strategic Shocks in Defense Strategy Development,” the report warned that the U.S. military and intelligence community remain mired in the past as well as the need to accommodate government policy. Freier, a former Pentagon official, said that despite the Al Qaida surprise in 2001 U.S. defense strategy and planning remain trapped by “excessive convention.”

“The current administration confronted a game-changing ’strategic shock’ inside its first eight months in office,” the report said. “The next administration would be well-advised to expect the same during the course of its first term. Indeed, the odds are very high against any of the challenges routinely at the top of the traditional defense agenda triggering the next watershed inside DoD [Department of Defense].”

The report cited the collapse of what Freier termed “a large capable state that results in a nuclear civil war.” Such a prospect could lead to uncontrolled weapons of mass destruction proliferation as well as a nuclear war.

The report cited the prospect of a breakdown of order in the United States. Freier said the Pentagon could be suddenly forced to recall troops from abroad to fight domestic unrest.

“An American government and defense establishment lulled into complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to rapidly divest some or most external security commitments in order to address rapidly expanding human insecurity at home,” the report said.

The report said the United States could also come under pressure from a hostile state with control over insurgency groups. The hostile state could force American decision-makers into a desperate response.

World Tribune