Since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in September 2001 US authorities have uncovered several attempts to cause death and destruction on American soil. Here is a timeline of some of the major plots.

September 11 2001:

Terrorists hijack four commercial airliners taking off from various US airports in a co-ordinated suicide attack orchestrated by al-Qaeda. Two of the planes crash into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York causing them to collapse. A third crashes into the Pentagon, in Washington DC, and the fourth crashes in Pennsylvania. Approximately 3,000 people are thought to have died.

December 2001:

Richard Reid, a British citizen, hides explosives inside his shoes aboard a flight from Paris to Miami and attempts to set them off. He is apprehended and the flight diverts to Boston's Logan Airport. Reid is found guilty of terrorism offences in 2003 and sentenced to life in prison.

May 2007:

Six men are arrested in a plot to attack Fort Dix – a US Army base in New Jersey. The plan included attacking soldiers with grenades and assault rifles.

November 2009:

Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army major serving as a psychiatrist, shoots dead 13 people at Fort Hood – America's biggest military base. Police shoot and wound Hasan during his rampage at the Texas base. He is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder.

December 2009:

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian with an American visa, attempts to blow up a jet over Detroit on Christmas Day using explosives hidden in his underwear. He is subsequently charged with six terrorism offences and remains in US custody.

May 2010:

Police foil attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square. A sports utility vehicle laden with three propane tanks, dozens of firecrackers, two tanks of gasoline and fertiliser, was parked at the corner or West 45th Street and Broadway, an area full of pedestrians.

October 2012:

FBI agents arrest a Bangladeshi man after he attempted to detonate a 1,000lb car bomb outside the Federal Reserve . Agents went undercover to set up the sting, ensuring that the bomb was only a dummy device so the public was never in danger. Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, was arrested soon after.

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China and South Korea have reacted angrily to the news that two cabinet members and the head of the largest opposition party paid their respects to Japan's war dead at Yasukuni Shrine.

Chinese media claimed the decision by Shinzo Abe, president of the Liberal Democratic Party, to visit the controversial shrine on Wednesday reflects "the resurgence of nationalism in Japan that could endanger regional stability."

On Thursday morning, Yuichiro Hata, the transport minister, and Mikio Shimoji, who is tasked with overseeing reform of Japan's postal system, also visited Yasukuni for its autumn festival.

The shrine is considered the last resting place of Japan's war dead, including 14 senior military and government leaders who were convicted of war crimes after the end of World War II and were executed by the Allies.

The government has emphasised that Hata and Shimoji were paying their respects in a "private capacity," while Abe - who is likely to be Japan's next prime minister in general elections that need to be held in the next 12 months - said he was simply paying his respects.

The timing of the politicians' visit to a shrine seen by Japan's neighbours as a symbol of its militarist and colonial past has come at an inopportune moment, with Tokyo locked in a bitter dispute with China over the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands, which Tokyo controls, while simultaneously demanding that Seoul return islands that South Korea marks as Dok-do on its maps.

Describing Abe as "pandering to nationalist sentiment," the state-run China Daily newspaper quoted Wang Ping, a researcher on Japanese studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as saying that Japanese politicians are becoming increasingly more radical as they try to prove their nationalist credentials ahead of the election.

"As Japanese politics becomes ever more conservative, uncertainties may continue to mount and trigger further concern among Asian neighbours worried about regional stability," Wang said.

In Seoul, a spokesman for the foreign ministry expressed "deep regret and concern" at Abe's visit to the shrine, which he described as "a symbol of the Japanese war of aggression and militarism."

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International efforts to defeat Islamist rebels gain momentum.

The European Union yesterday (15 October) said that it may deploy a military mission to Mali to help regain control of the north of the country, which has been seized by Islamist rebels in recent months.

Foreign ministers from the EU's 27 member states ended a meeting in Luxembourg by calling for the EU's diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS), to present a plan for consideration on 19 November, when the ministers next meet.

Options likely to be considered in the plan include the despatch of military trainers to Mali and the deployment of soldiers to fight alongside members of Mali's small army.

"We believe there's a real risk for the region if Mali remains an ungoverned space, free for terrorists and drug traffickers to operate," said the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.

The gravity of EU concerns was underlined by the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, who said: "We have to avoid at an early stage the development of a second Somalia, without any rule of law. Because then there are going to be founded further terrorist schools that will endanger our situation here in Europe too."

The mission would be co-ordinated with the United Nations, the African Union and the west African grouping, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas). On Friday (12 October), the UN's 15-member Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for Ecowas, the African Union and the UN to draw up a plan for a possible military intervention, with "detailed and actionable recommendations" to be delivered within 45 days.

On Friday (19 October), all the international groups engaged in efforts to re-establish security in Mali – including the EU – and representatives from neighbouring countries will meet in the Malian capital, Bamako, to discuss strategy.

The security crisis comes against the backdrop of an ongoing political crisis. The advances of separatists in the north prompted government soldiers in March to remove President Amadou Toumani Toure. Under international pressure, a caretaker government was then established, but the process remains incomplete. "I hope that what we'll see in the future is a Malian government with a credible roadmap for the restoration of democratic government," Ashton said.

Since the spring, the separatists in the north have been defeated by Islamist rebels.

The political and security crises have in turn transformed long-standing food problems a full-blown humanitarian crisis, forcing up to 450,000 people to leave their homes.

© 2012 European Voice. All rights reserved.

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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanded an investigation after one peacekeeper was killed and three others wounded on Wednesday in an ambush in Sudan's North Darfur state.

According to Ban's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, all the victims, from the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), had South African nationality.

"The secretary general urges the government of the Sudan to conduct a full investigation and to ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice," a statement from Ban said.

"The secretary general expresses his condolences to the government of the Republic of South Africa, UNAMID and to the family of the fallen peacekeeper."

A joint statement from the 15 members of the UN Security Council condemned the attack in the strongest terms, and called on the Sudanese authorities "to swiftly investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice."

Wednesday's ambush occurred while a UNAMID convoy of military, police and civilian personnel was heading to assess the situation following recent reports of violence near the flashpoint village of Hashaba, the mission said.

Hashaba is in Kutum district, the scene of unrest since early August when a district chief was shot dead during a carjacking attempt.

It was the second deadly ambush this month involving UNAMID peacekeepers. Four Nigerian UNAMID peacekeepers were killed on October 2 in an attack near El-Geneina, in West Darfur state.

UNAMID has been in Sudan's far-western Darfur region for more than four years with a mandate to protect civilians in a region where rebel-government clashes, banditry and inter-tribal fighting continues, though violence is less than when rebels began an insurrection nearly a decade ago.

Ethnic African rebels rose against the Arab-dominated Khartoum government in 2003. In response, the government unleashed state-backed Janjaweed Arab militia in a conflict that shocked the world and led to allegations of genocide.

The United Nations estimates at least 300,000 people died, but the government puts the toll at 10,000.

An estimated 1.7 million people are still living in camps for the displaced, it says.

The United States says more than 70 civilians died in September from fighting and aerial bombardments between rebels and Sudanese government forces.

Much of the Darfur unrest now is linked to pro-government Arab groups, which fight among themselves as well as against the regime, humanitarian sources have said.

With more than 22,000 international troops and police officers, UNAMID, the largest peacekeeping operation in the world, has a budget of about $1.4 billion for 2012-13.

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FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELHI, Afghanistan — The ragged dartboard nestled between camouflage uniform items and a giant American flag has seen better days.

Thousands of tiny holes pockmark its aged cork scoring area. An ever-increasing growth is swelling just above its bull’s eye, courtesy of the tiny spotlight illuminating it from above. The thin piece of plywood it hangs on is barely a wall, but it holds the room’s most important item.

Hanging in a tiny office hewn out of Hesco barriers, the dartboard is a haven of relaxation for U.S. Marines and Army soldiers after another day on deployment in Helmand province’s Garmsir district.

Though the nightly matches began as a way for three Military Information Support Operations soldiers to unwind after finishing their work, they slowly evolved into a spirited competition with their Marine counterparts.

Rather than playing video games or watching movies every night, they frequently opt for this simple source of entertainment. Marine Cpl. Robert Garcia jokingly refers to the dart board as their best entertainment alternative since “a pool table wouldn’t fit in the office.”

The three MISO soldiers — currently working in support of 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment — are a rare commodity on the Marine base. Despite their autonomy, they’re determined to earn bragging rights through their dart-throwing dexterity.

“The Marines are both professional and proud, so I try to show them somebody else can be better than them in other disciplines when we play darts,” said Army Sgt. Pedro Reyesmontiel, a MISO team leader supporting 3/3 and 42-year-old native of Cleveland, Ohio. “I love seeing the desperation on their faces when they’re losing a game to a soldier.”

Long before any darts are thrown, the Marines and soldiers trade jabs, offer sarcasm and boast with unwavering confidence about the results of the night’s upcoming games.

Army Cpl. Timothy Walker, an assistant MISO team leader and 30-year-old native of Mentor, Ohio, jokes that the soldiers are still “looking for a few good men” to challenge them to a game of darts.

Refusing to be outdone, Garcia accuses Reyesmontiel of failing to hit the dartboard and encourages his fellow Marines to stay clear of the “danger zone” for fear of being struck by an errant throw.

The inter-service competitors welcome the constant flow of animated dialogue and relentless rivalry surrounding their dart games. The friendly competition is a breath of fresh air amid the work atmosphere from which they are rarely able to step away.

“This helps us learn each other’s personalities, which creates a more relaxed work environment and builds camaraderie between us,” said Garcia, a radio operator with Headquarters and Service Company, 3/3, and 21-year-old native of Lake Forest, Calif.

Once their work is done, the darts are drawn and the competitors dive into their highly anticipated games. Though they play for victory and bragging rights, the mental break, which Walker called a “morale booster,” is something on which they can all agree.

“Playing darts helps us kill some time before going to sleep, and to blow off some steam after putting up with the crap we had to that day,” Garcia said.

As the soldiers eye the end of their deployment and the Marines near theirs as well, they embrace the brief moment to set aside the stresses of the day.

“At the end of the day, a couple of games of darts are a good distraction,” Garcia said. “They keep my mind off of worrying about going home.”

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A British jihadi has been identified as a key ringleader of a gang of Muslims who have gone to fight against the Assad regime in Syria, it has been reported.

The Security Services have reportedly identified the young man, who has not been named, as the leader the gang of more than 50 men who have waged a holy war against President Bashar al-Assad.

The man, who is his 20s and believed to be from a Bangladeshi family, is regarded as a high-ranking officer in an international group of terrorists devoted to bringing down the regime, the Times reported.

According to the paper, the man, who is from London, is believed to be a pious individual involved in military training for “raw” British recruits, who mostly live in the capital.

The jihadis, who said to have volunteered to the cause, include “hardened” Chechen fighters and crossed into Syria over the border from Iraq or Turkey.

The newspaper claimed that Scotland Yard had seized computers and mobile phones from addresses in Britain linked to the men with the material being “urgently” analysed.

Security chiefs estimate that there are just over 50 Britons in Syria fighting to bring down President Assad. A number of the group are believed to be Islamic fundamentalists, it added.

The gang are believed to be young Muslim males, mostly of Asian origin but with a number from North African backgrounds and some being white or Afro-Caribbean Islamic converts.

Authorities are particularly worried about the conflict because it is said to attract violent Muslim idealists who are likely to make contact with the global jihadi movement, the Times claimed.

They would return home having learnt how to use arms and explosives, posing a terrorist threat in Britain.

Security sources told the newspaper that authorities were concerned about the domestic threat emerging from Syria than they were about the conflict in Libya last year.

In comparison most of the “British fighters” who fought to overthrow Col Muammar Gaddafi were Libyan exiles.

Most of them live in the Manchester area and are said to be have been motivated by patriotism rather than an ideological jihad.

Scotland Yard has not commented on the claims.

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“Oh that’s clever…make fun of the trained killer in the room.”

It’s my favorite line. I whip it out whenever someone gives me shit or tries to rattle me. And being 6’1 and 240 pounds, it usually works.

Only it’s not my line. It’s from an episode of the absurdly funny sitcom Gary Unmarried that Rob Riggle starred in with Jay Mohr from 2008 – 2010. The great thing about that line is that it wasn’t written by some actor trying to be someone he’s not, but by a Marine with multiple deployments under his belt, making it all the sweeter.

You see, Rob Riggle the actor is also Rob Riggle the Marine Lieutenant Colonel with over 20 years of service to his credit on active duty and in the Reserves. But Rob Riggle the actor almost didn’t happen. After graduating from Kansas University in 1992 he joined the Marines to be a pilot and was on his way to making that dream happen when the comedy bug diverted him. He’d been active in comedy clubs and film and knew deep down he could make a living at it as long as he completely dedicated himself to a life of entertaining others. And therein lied the problem.

“There’s something that sticks in my craw about quitting,” he recalls looking back on the decision to leave flight school. “So when I did it I had a pep talk with myself. I said that it had to count. It had to matter. I had to accomplish X, Y, and Z or it wouldn’t be worthwhile.”

After seven years of midnight shows in front of nine drunks in a basement and less pay than a cheerleader, doubt was Riggle’s roommate. Turning down the life of a Marine fighter pilot seemed as bad as turning down a nightcap with Sophia Vergara, but he wasn’t going to trade in his one-liners for pom-poms.

“That was good stuff too,” he says. “I was paying my dues and working my way up. I’d be riding the subway home after a small show hoping it will pay off one night and then I’d have a great show in front of a lot of people the next night and knew I was doing the right thing.”

Doing the right thing is always the hardest of any set of choices and comedy is no different. Talking with Riggle his voice is the tired, haggard tone of someone who’s been burning the midnight oil to slake an unquenchable thirst to get more out of life. He’s driven; unwilling to be satisfied with mediocrity…a characteristic that any alpha male can relate to. And he’s spent his fare share with many of them.

“I miss [active duty] on a people level,” Riggle says. “In the Marine Corps I was used to people doing what they said and saying what they mean. There was a higher purpose and calling in the Corps. Everyone works toward accomplishing something together and there’s a common goal. In entertainment the same isn’t always true. You’re in it for yourself in Hollywood.”

But he doesn’t blame the backstabbers and weasels of Tinseltown (I’ll go ahead and say it if he won’t) for the materialism and individualism of entertainment. He blames the system. A system created by the people’s own demands for entertainment where billions of dollars are at stake and actors and musicians are worshipped, followed, stalked, and obsessed over like thunder-wielding demi Gods. The stakes in entertainment are so high that it causes many to violate their own moral standing or come face to face with the blistering reality that they don’t have one. Their only responsibility is to themselves and their bank accounts, but it’s not anyone’s fault.

“It’s our own,” Riggle says. “It’s the chicken and the egg. I read a Wall Street Journal article about a girl who was targeted by the Taliban for execution. She was fourteen and advocating educating girls. They sent an assassin to her house and shot her in the neck and the face and tried to kill her for it. A fourteen year-old girl! She survived, but it incensed me, so I tweeted it and maybe a handful of people noticed, but for the most part no one said much. But I tweet about filming a new movie with Johnny Knoxville and my twitter lights up.”

Besides Knoxville, who he starred alongside in “Nature Calls,” Riggle’s career has run the gambit from stand up clubs to Disney movies to Saturday Night Live and now the comic relief on Fox’s NFL Pregame Show. He’s been in highly successful productions like Talladega Nights, The Hangover, Arrested Development, American Dad, and The Office and one-and-done sitcoms like Straight Plan for the Gay Man. The one thing that’s been consistent about his life is hard work, even if the paychecks aren’t.

“I liked getting paid twice a month in the Corps. Out here [in Hollywood] you eat what you kill. You constantly have to produce. The times can get lean, so you have to go get it every day.”

No matter how lean the times get or how empty his comedy account is, Riggle rarely uses his military background as material with two exceptions: The absurdly funny short video “The Man Who Killed Bin Laden,” (filmed the day after the real death of OBL) and a 2008 Daily Show skit in which he dressed as a hippie and went undercover to expose the liberal group Code Pink and their demonstration to have the Marine Recruiting station in Berkley removed (an event that Ranger Up made a shirt to commemorate).

“I got really angry at what was going on down there,” Riggle says. “The guys in Berkley were getting shit from every side, so I told John Stewart that I wanted to do something about it and he was like, ‘go do it.’

During this video Riggle revealed that he was in fact a Marine, but for the most part he keeps his two worlds separate, not playing a military character or writing military experiences into his comedy for a reason.

“When you’re leading Marines you don’t screw around so the comedy is limited in uniform. And when you’re a comedian you can’t be heavy handed and come across with tales of gore or material that people won’t understand, so I try to keep them separate.”

But that separation line gets blurred when it comes to a joke that may not be in line with the Corps or his standing as an officer. In those cases Riggle refuses to edit himself and defers to his own judgment.

“Part of being a comedian is being a jackass, so I don’t worry about the officer corps having any issue with anything I say. They’re big boys. In the end funny trumps all.”

Riggle’s funny has been trumping all for several years while he continued to serve in the Marine Reserves as a Public Affairs Officer that’s taken him from Kosovo to Liberia to Afghanistan. In all of those deployments his career as a performer was interrupted and the dream was delayed, pushed to the side by the belligerent activities of the Taliban, KLA, or Liberian Rebels. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. Those were the experiences that reinforced his beliefs and built a sincere appreciation for the man on his right and left, even if they were congregated around a card table instead of a fighting position.

It also gave him perspective on the life of a professional comedian because no matter what crap hole on earth the Corps sent him to, he had an out. He could come back to the USA when the mission was over while the local population stayed behind and lived out their own little horror stories. It instilled a perspective of what is important and what is not and made clear that no matter how bad the life of a struggling comic was, it could be much worse.

That’s one reason he kept serving even when he didn’t have to; to help others who couldn’t help themselves. There was a tangible reward for staying in uniform even if it delayed his dream and sapped his pocketbook. Riggle had several opportunities to take off the uniform, but decided to stay in and balance his two worlds for a simple reason.

“I just love the Corps. I love the brotherhood, the camaraderie. I thank anyone in uniform who serves their fellow man. I love this country for so many reasons. We have such a great country here and it’s worth defending and it’s worth sacrificing for.”

But his sacrifice is coming to an end. He once made the arduous decision to forego flight school and pursue acting and he recently faced another equally daunting decision – retirement. The two worlds he so successfully balanced for so long are out of whack. Success has made it too difficult to knock out Reserve drills and maintain a hectic, here-today-gone-tomorrow acting schedule. As someone who’s recently retired I know how agonizing it will be for him to take off the uniform, but that’s the dilemma we all face – making decisions that we have to stick with no matter what the outcome.

“You have to make choices for your life and [the Marines] was mine. Really that’s what anything comes down to is making the decision to do something and following through with it.”

Regrets? None. Something he would change? One thing ...

READ THE REST AT: The RhinoDen >

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A highly contagious software virus is proving very effective at targeting a very important piece of electronics: The Pacemaker.

Pacemaker's keep poorly functioning human hearts on beat, by discharging small amounts of electricity into the cardiac muscle at specific times.

The malware spreads like a disease to every pacemaker in range of the originally infected unit, effectively daisy chaining a deadly voltage of electricity.

This is just one of a couple revelations that came out of a recent BreakPoint security conference in Melbourne.

Barnaby Jack, IOActive researcher, diagrammed just how easy it was to hack into a pacemaker from 30 feet away, just by using the ID number of the unit. Jack said it was up to the designers to put in fail safes against such compromises, and that they should be liable for allowing such a weakness.

Gregory Ferenstein of TechCrunch reports that Jack said, "“The worst case scenario that I can think of, which is 100 percent possible with these devices, would be to load a compromised firmware update onto a programmer and … the compromised programmer would then infect the next pacemaker or ICD [implantable cardioverter-defibrillators] and then each would subsequently infect all others in range.”

And it's not just pacemakers where manufacturers fail to produce hacker fail safes, it almost all medical equipment.

MIT's Technology Review that "A meeting of government officials reveals that medical equipment is becoming riddled with malware," and that the trend is steadily growing. The Tech Review goes further, calling out manufacturer's for their dangerous concerns over adherence to regulatory agencies — "The problem is exacerbated by the fact that manufacturers often will not allow their equipment to be modified, even to add security features ... because of disagreements over whether modifications could run afoul of U.S. Food and Drug Administration"

"I find this mind-boggling,"  said Kevin Fu, a leading expert on medical-device security and a computer scientist at the University of Michigan and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. "Conventional malware is rampant in hospitals because of medical devices using un patched operating systems. There's little recourse for hospitals when a manufacturer refuses to allow OS updates or security patches," concluded Fu at a medical device panel that Tech Review covered.

Jack said these attacks, especially on but not limited to the Pacemakers, could be used in targeted assassination plots on U.S. officials — currently former vice president Dick Cheney has a pacemaker.

That being said, yet again the idea of a future national security tied to a honed offensive and defensive cyber prowess is becoming more of a reality.

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The documentary Armadillo follows a platoon of Danish soldiers as they endure a six-month deployment to Afghanistan in what ends up being the bloodiest two years of the war, fought in Helmand, the most dangerous province of the country.

The grunts start off green, inexperienced, unseasoned, even innocent. But as they explore the depths, the frustrations, and the subtle horrors of the cold moral abyss that is the face of combat, they discover things about themselves they never knew, until Afghanistan demanded an answer.

Scars, seen and unseen, take shape throughout the course of their deployment.

[Warning Graphic]

Clean shaven and eager to fight — the troops line up to for the obligatory speech about duty, honor, etc

But the real camaraderie is displayed outside of formation — wresting and rough-housing brings the young troops closer — like brothers

The guys bond over other activities as well before they deploy — like hiring exotic dancers

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Two members of the Assad family exchanged gunfire in a cafe in the mountainous town where Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's father was born and buried, Liz Sly of the Washington Post reports.

The confrontation—along with the regime's detainment of a prominent Alawite activist—reflects the weakening cohesion within the Alawite community, which comprises 2.5 million people concentrated in Latakia region on Syria's northwestern coast.

“The Alawites are critical for Assad’s survival. He wouldn’t survive a day without their complete support, so the fact that we are seeing tensions is significant,” Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, told the Post. “Most Alawites are upset with the regime, and they feel Assad is dragging their sect into a conflict they can’t eventually win.”

Syria scholar Joshua Landis, whose wife is Alawite, told the Post that the clash occurred when Mohammed al-Assad—known as the “Sheik of the Mountain” for his role as the local Assad family enforcer—pulled his gun after being insulted by another Assad relative named Sakher Osman.

Both men and as many as six others were injured in the ensuing shootout, according to the Post. Landis, a professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma, said President Assad intervened in the dispute to calm tempers and restore order.

The Alawite sect is a offshoot of Shiite Islam that endured centuries of persecution under Sunni rule until Assad's father, Hafez, seized power in 1970 and stacked the country's elite and security forces with Alawites. The population has remained loyal to Bashar Assad out of loyalty and a fear that they would be ostracized in the free-for-all that would likely follow Assad's downfall. 

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Iran just dropped a bombshell about its speed boat program: they're now equipped with anti-ship cruise missiles.

Boom.

Iran's Fars News Agency reported this week, "Iran's speedboats have been equipped with the capability to fire different types of anti-ship cruise missiles, an Iranian defense official announced on Monday."

Not only are the speedboats now in service, armed with special "antiship"missiles, but Iran's Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi felt the need to boast, saying "All throughout the world, Iran is the only country which has speed vessels with the ability of firing (rockets and missile) at high speeds."  

"We now have speedboats which can launch missiles as they traverse at a speed over 60km (per hour)," the commander said.

The Telegraph's Jon Stock recently reported that the speedboats' design may be based of a British Award Winning boat the Bradstone Challenger. In fact, Stock noted that Iran has been in the market for Italian and other western speedboat designs.

"Acknowledging the David-and-Goliath discrepancy between its own armed forces and the West’s, Iran has developed various “asymmetric” approaches to warfare," Stock writes.

Iran's armed forces are widely regarded by experts to be defensive based and centered around delaying invasion for the purposes of diplomacy. Certainly in the face of the American 5th Fleet, Iran's "asymmetrical" approach could be just to harass the larger force in an effort to hold out for appeals to the U.N.

On the other hand, Iran has demonstrated the ability to turn these boats into drones. Presumably several speedy drones could be packed with explosives and missiles and sent suicide bomber like, head on into the fray, guns blazing.

Explosives aside, cruise missiles are among the more deadly missile systems. Small, low flying, incredibly fast, with a natural resistance to electronic countermeasures and almost too speedy to be shot down.

Iran has several variations, each with a strange name:

From Fars:

- Zafar (Triumph) is a short-range, anti-ship, radar guided missile capable of hitting and destroying small and medium-sized targets with high precision.

- The anti-ship missile, called Nour (Light), is a long-range cruise missile manufactured by Iran and has already been mounted on several military gears. 

- And the newest, the Qader (Mighty), was displayed to the public during the military parades marking the Week of Sacred Defense in September.

CNN also published a video based of the Telegraph report. Watch the video here >

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Less than two years after leaving a cushy gig at a drug-testing company, Eric Fitzsimons is getting ready to launch "i Employ Veterans" bottled water through his company Veterans H2O, which will put 100 percent of net profits into salaries for veterans.

In early 2011, Fitzsimons, of Roseville, Calif., met the owner of NPACTAMERICA, a non-profit  employing people with disabilities. He said the pay at non-profits was lower, but the work was much more rewarding.

Fitzsimons quit his job and went to work at the non-profit.

In his new position, Fitzsimons learned about government programs that award contracts to companies that hire people with disabilities. Before he'd left his other job, he'd started watching documentaries on the difficulties wounded veterans have finding jobs.

Fitzsimons knew the toll not being able to provide for a family could take, having grown up with a grandfather who was a World War II prisoner of war and had trouble finding a job after getting home,

"He was miserable for the rest of his life," Fitzsimons said, during a phone interview. He decided since he hadn't served in the military, it was his responsibility to give back to those who had.

After starting at the non-profit, Fitzsimons learned that the Defense Commissary Agency (DECA) had a $1.6 billion-a-year contract. He said he thought it was crazy there wasn't an agency employing veterans, and started trying to figure out what he could sell to DECA.

After the prices of meat and dairy wound up being too high, he moved onto bottled water, which is sold in every supermarket and was the easiest product to put a private label on.

"I think I've found a recipe to give Coke and Pepsi a run for their money," he said. In addition, since the label says "i Employ Veterans," the product gives shoppers an easy way to give back to the troops.

Fitzsimons doesn't have a DECA contract yet, but he did secure distribution through SUPERVALU. Farm Fresh supermarkets in Hampton Roads, Va., should start selling "i Employ Veterans" in January. The area was picked because it's a military hub--Fort Eustis, Fort Lee, Norfolk Naval Base, and Joint Base Langley-Eustis are all close.

"SUPERVALU really wants us to be successful," Fitzsimons said.

He plans to buy a van and travel around, promoting the brand on a grass-roots level as it rolls out to other stores on the East Coast. He's mostly employing veterans in accounting and promotions, but if someone has a skill not applicable to Veterans H20, they can get paid to intern at another company for a year, to have a better resume when they face the job market again.

Once the water is a success, Fitzsimons would like to branch out to food staples, and eventually get veterans hired in the distribution chain.

Now check out: The Navy's Newest Destroyer >

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A few years ago, buddies Billy Griffin, a Navy lieutenant, and Tony Hatala, a Marine captain, decided it should be much easier to find the phone numbers for resources on military posts.

It's especially frustrating for new troops, who show up on a bse for the first time with a set of orders and no idea where to go.

The pair were clearly not alone in their frustration and after squeezing in some programming during deployments, family obligations, and military life their app, MilitaryTraveler, recently hit 30,000 downloads on iTunes.

But it all started with that one converstaion in 2010. Griffin and Hatala were both deployed on the USS Peleliu, and in their sliver of downtime they started talking about how an app to consolidate all the information someone might need on a military base would look. The idea took on a life and Hatala started creating the model.

They limited themselves to Marine bases at first, there are fewer of them, and after all Hatala is a Marine. For months it was just the two of them, logging all the base information they could find either in print or on base websites.

In March 2011, they officially launched the app on iTunes, and followed it up shortly thereafter with an Android version. The update, 1.6, debuted this spring and has proven a hit, with a 4+ rating from the App Store and 4.8 out of 5 rating on Android.

Along with the phone numbers for base staples like Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) centers, barbershops, and dining facilities, the numbers for inprocessing and transition assistance are available for most bases. What Griffin and Hatala are most proud of, though, is the "Request for Correction" option, making the app interactive. 

"People will write in and say they're trying to get in touch with so-and-so, and I will call on my lunch break," said Griffin, currently working at the Pentagon. With the basic framework completed on all the bases in the States, the customer input lets them go back to make one "phenomenal."

Though Griffin and Hatala handled all the data input for the first year, with Hatala currently deployed, they've started delegating some of the work. A friend's fiance is updating movie times, and they've started signing licensing contracts with base MWRs.

"We're still going to help, but they'll bear most of the burden of updating links and other information," Griffin said. Aside from helping Griffin and Hatala avoid carpal tunnel syndrome, the MWRs will get the word out, promoting the app when they promote activities such as marathons and concerts.

They're not giving up too much control, though. Griffin plans on devoting more time to the project after his Navy stint is up in spring 2013. And while Hatala has a few more years of service left, Griffin said he wants to go to Harvard Business School.

Now see: How to work a room like a 4-star >

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Dave Lutz of Stifel, Nicolaus has some notes out after meeting with investors on the West Coast.

He notes that there's a lot of interest in the fiscal cliff, and says:

The ITA is ground Zero for Fiscal Cliff sentiment – as it has all the major defense contractors involved.

Because defense stands to get clipped hard in the upcoming "sequestration", this ETF which captures all of the big defense companies is where investors are focusing their action.

Here are the Top 10 holdings, per Yahoo Finance:

As for the performance of the ETF itself, here's how it's done over the past year. It appears to be doing well.

But against the S&P, these stocks are underperforming.

Watch this space to gauge sentiment on the fiscal cliff.

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Human Rights Watch has released a new report, titled "Death of a Dictator", that looks at the death of former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi and a number of his supporters.

Perhaps most remarkable is that we still don't really know exactly how Qaddafi died, and the Libyan government has never publicly investigated it.

What we do know is that Qaddafi had been attempting to flee the city of Sirte with a heavily armed convey when one vehicle was hit by a missile fired by a NATO-drone. The rest of the convey soon came under fire from NATO jets.

Qaddafi and some of his followers attempted to flee through fields on foot, but were quickly found by rebel militia men. Qaddafi was injured from a grenade his own bodyguard had thrown, but he was attacked further:

As soon as the militia fighters had custody of [Qaddafi], they began abusing him. Blood was already gushing from the shrapnel wound in his head. As he was being led onto the main road, a militiaman stabbed him in his anus with what appears to have been a bayonet, causing another rapidly bleeding wound. Misrata militia fighters surrounded [Qaddafi], punching and beating him, and yelling “Allahu Akbar!” and “Misrata!” over and over again.

One militia leader explained to HRW:

"When we captured [Qaddafi], the situation was a mess. There were very many fighters around. He was alive when I saw him, so he must have been shot later, not when we saw him here. But it was a violent scene, he was put on the front of a pickup truck that tried to drive him away, and he fell off. It was very confusing. People were pulling on his hair and hitting him. We understood there needed to be a trial, but we couldn’t control everyone, some acted beyond our control."

Video footage of Qaddafi taken at the scene of his capture shows Qaddafi being loaded into an ambulance. He is nearly naked and very pale. He was certainly dead when he finally arrived at hospital, two hours later.

The report says that his death remains unexplained:

The exact circumstances of his death remain unclear: some militia fighters from Benghazi claim to have shot Gaddafi dead during a dispute with Misrata fighters about where to take him, but their claims remain unconfirmed.

Libya’s chief forensic pathologist, Dr. Othman al-Zintani, later told the press that Qaddafi had died from a gunshot wound to the head. However, the official autopsy was never concluded and Dr. al-Zintani says he has been threatened for conducting it. Human Rights Watch was allowed to inspect the body, but were not able to turn the body over to inspect the back of the head. They could not see any exit wounds that would indicate he was shot at short range.

Qaddafi is just one of many who appears to have been summarily executed by the rebels. The report says that 150 pro-Qaddafi fighters were captured that day. Up to 66 of these fighters were found dead the next day, with video footage existing that shows them being beaten and berated.

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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday nominated a former senior commander in Afghanistan as the new head of the military's Africa Command, which oversees US security efforts on the continent.

The change in leadership comes amid growing concerns over Al-Qaeda's affiliates in the region, particularly in Mali, and a deadly attack on a US consulate in Libya linked to Islamist extremists.

Panetta said General David Rodriguez, who served as the deputy American commander in Afghanistan and helped plan the "surge" of additional troops in the war, was well-suited to the post.

As chief of the NATO-led force's joint command, Rodriguez "oversaw the coalition and Afghan forces during the surge, and was a key architect of the successful campaign plan that we are now implementing," Panetta told a news conference.

Rodriguez, known by troops as "General Rod" and who currently serves as head of US Army Forces command, was touted as a possible chief commander for Afghanistan last year. The job however went to a Marine, General John Allen, who after a year in Kabul is due to hand over soon to another Marine, General Joseph Dunford.

If his nomination is confirmed by the Senate as expected, Rodriguez will succeed General Carter Ham, who played a key role in the NATO air war in Libya.

As head of Africa Command, Rodriguez would help oversee counter-terrorism missions in Somalia, Yemen, Mali, Nigeria and elsewhere, as well as training and other efforts designed to bolster US military ties across the region.

The command's headquarters is based in Stuttgart, Germany.

Panetta also named General John Paxton as the new number two of the US Marine Corps, as the outgoing assistant to the commandant, Dunford, will soon be taking over as the top US and NATO military chief in Afghanistan.

 NOW READ: How Friendly Competition Eases Pressure In Afghanistan >

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In a world where you can watch cyberattacks happen in real-time, it's no wonder that nation-states are doing little to hide the cyber arms race and low-grade cyberwar that's taking place.

However, what's surprising is that the country leading the charge — the U.S. — may also be the one with the most to lose.

"There is a world of bytes and a world of atoms, and increasingly the world of bytes is driving the world of atoms," Dr. Jarno Limnell, director of cyber security at Stonesoft, told us. "This is a whole new capability for these state-actors — previously there was no way to touch the U.S."

Siobhan Gorman of WSJ reports that a government-backed group of Iranian hackers called the Qassam Cyber Fighters have sustained an assault on U.S. banks for five weeks—even after announcing its plans to attack in advance.

The Iranian hackers are using a new cyberweapon called "itsoknoproblembro" that has disrupted the websites of America's largest banks. U.S. officials claim the attacks are in response to the crippling sanctions being imposed on Iran, but it could be as simple as the fact that the U.S. attacked them first.

In June one of Barack Obama's aides told The New York Times that the president "repeatedly expressed concerns that any American acknowledgment that it was using cyberweapons ... could enable other countries, terrorists or hackers to justify their own attacks."

Limnell said the arms race flood gates were opened when the Obama administration took credit for the Stuxnet virus that sabotaged Iranian nuclear centrifuges. And although they were mum on the next big virus, Flame, security experts have linked Flame to Israel and the National Security Agency (NSA).

Limnell said the cyberwarfare could reach a point in which America's traditionally overwhelming military force could be rendered obsolete by a keyboard. 

"Almost all weapons systems today run on some kind of software," Limnell said. "Missiles are very useful if you can launch them, if you can’t launch them, they are useless. Lose power in the bits world, and you lose power in the physical world."

Currently more than 140 countries are actively developing cyber-espionage and warfare capabilities, according to Critical Defence vice president Jeffrey Bernstein, and they aren't going to be shy about using them.

Capabilities vary. China, which began its Information Warfare (IW) plan in 1995, has been stealing America's business secrets for more than a decade. Russia recently stated that it's "not making a secret of their plans to gain offensive [cyber] technologies."

The U.S. isn't in the best position to invite cyberwar. As Red Seal Chief Technology Officer Dr. Mike Lloyd told us when he described how easy it would be to attack the physical U.S. infrastructure: "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. [And] unfortunately, it's not just that—very simple stones can break our glass windows. We have very thin defenses."

"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. [And] unfortunately, it's not just that—very simple stones can break our glass windows.We have very thin defenses."

The big question is whether a cyberattack can trigger a "real world" attack.

Last year the Pentagon concluded that cyberattacks would justify a traditional military response.

And in August BBC reported on a leaked Israeli memo that spelled out  the hybrid use of cyber and military warfare in a proposed assault on Iran.

"This is the most troubling aspect of developing these weapons," said Limnell. "What is the action of the president if an attack happens, does it immediately become kinetic?"

Limnell said the difference between traditional warfare and cyberwarfare is that often cyberwarfare includes, indeed even prioritizes, civilian targets. And like the situation with the nuclear weapons in the 50s and 60s, there are no international rules for how we can use these weapons.

"Cyberwarfare is like Wild West right now, there’s a huge lack of norms and rules," Limnell said. "We will experience some type of major problem before we learn how to use weapons in the cyber domain."

Writers note: According to the Honeynet Project, from 09:00 to 13:51 its "honeypots" detected:

- 15,193 recognized hacker attempts in Russia

- 6,211 in Brazil

- 4,496 in Romania

- 2,931 in Poland

- 1,860 in the U.S.

- 1,492 in Argentina

- 515 in India

- 109 in Iran

SEE ALSO: CYBERSECURITY EXPERT: The US Is Vulnerable To Viruses Much Simpler Than Those It Used Against Iran >

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Over the past several years, drones have arguably become one of the most powerful weapons platforms in the world.

They get smaller, they get bigger, they get better armed, and they get better surveillance equipment. They're getting designed to land on carrier decks and to perform without any pilot control at all.

But until recently they couldn't fly in a formation of more than six, so their capacity has been somewhat limited. That limitation appears to have changed as the Air Force announced its 29th Attack Squadron, 9th Attack 
Squadron, and 6th Reconnaissance Squadron got together and laid the old record of six to waste.

On October 2, the three squadrons got together and tested a new 10 line system, a line is what's required to operate a single drone and consists of maintenance and flight crew to keep the drone flying, a ground control station, and the aircraft.

The test went perfectly and included 10 flight crews composed of students, pilots, instructors and sensor operators all working in coordination. They were controlling six MQ-9 Reapers and four MQ-1 Predators.

There's little reason to believe the military will stop at 10, and as it perfects the technology should begin building squadrons of drones, each carrying a massive ordnance load, to fly in formation just like a conventional bombing run.

The day of the single drone performing "surgical" strikes may not be over, but the ability to incur far greater destruction by allowing several Remote Piloted Aircraft (RPA) to perform an overlapping mission together may be on the way.

One MQ-9 Reaper can carry the following firepower:

• Up to 1,500 lb [bombs] (680 kg) on the two inboard weapons stations
• Up to 750 lb [bombs] (340 kg) on the two middle stations
• Up to 150 lb [bombs] (68 kg) on the outboard stations
• Up to 14 AGM-114 Hellfire air to ground missiles can be carried or four Hellfire missiles and two 500 lb (230 kg) GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bombs. The 500 lb (230 kg) GBU-38 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) can also be carried. Testing is underway to support the operation of the AIM-92 Stinger air-to-air missile.

Looking at those two lists it's easy to imagine the Pentagon is eyeing smaller, newer unmanned bombing wings, and unmanned fighting wings. 

From the Air Force:

Col. Kenneth Johnson, 49th Operations Group commander, said, "In the last year alone, the work the operations and maintenance RPA teams accomplish every day has grown by two-thirds ... This is in accordance with Gen. (ret.) Norton Schwartz, former U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, who said that ultimately, he believes it is conceivable that the majority of aviators in the Air Force will be flying remotely piloted aircraft.

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More than 25 years ago, British farmer David Cundall overheard a comment from a group of U.S. veterans who said they buried an unused fleet of World War II Spitfires in the Burmese jungle to hide them from Japanese troops.

The rumor wedged itself in his mind and he resisted it for more than 10 years before finally satisfying his curiosity.

The satisfaction didn't come cheap, and over the last 15 years Cundall spent $200,000 of his savings on trips to Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma, looking for the aircraft before finding them earlier this year. Now he's been given the government's permission to dig them up.

The original find was thought to be about 20 planes, but updated estimates put that number at 140.

So as we wrote when Cundall announced his find, the Spitfires sit still crated, with their wings folded back along their bodies, covered in grease and wax paper and buried in their original shipping crates. Their joints are even tarred and they're expected to be in pristine condition.

The Americans buried the planes, covered them with 40 feet of soil and assumed the British would be back later to dig them up and wipe them off, but the RAF never bothered.

At the close of World War II, Spitfires fell out of favor as newer, faster jets were rolled off the production line.

To get rid of the "surplus war machinery" many carrier crews were ordered to push the old planes off the deck and into the sea or send them to the scrap metal yard.

This wholesale scrapping of such a romanticized fighter had a few interesting results: It prompted a lot of conspiracy theories, reduced the number of Spitfires flying today to a lucrative 35, and prompted searches for buried planes throughout the Pacific.

A rumored stash in Queensland, Australia is supposed to hold up to 232 Spitfires, but despite perennial searching, none have yet been found.

Which is why Cundall's find is kind of a big deal in these circles. Because the Spitfires are in Burma, they could be everywhere else they're rumored to be.

And the payoff to find them is great. Cundall's partner bought a refinished Spitfire for 1.78 million pounds in 2009, an amount that is very close to $3 million dollars today. One-hundred-forty Spitfires sold at that price would bring in $470 million.

The news is still rippling outside aviation circles and finding a warm welcome with auto collectors who feared all the good "barn cars" had been found.

Jonathan Welsh at the WSJ's Driver's Seat pointed to Cundall's find and told his readers to take heart, "that research, legwork, and persistence can still pay off."

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The Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb is a staple of the American arsenal, and its high level of accuracy have made it indispensable in battles from Baghdad to Tripoli.

Being such an essential piece of ordnance, it's no surprise that Lockheed Martin is testing the JDAM's release in the F-35 — and this time — it's a big one at 2,000 pounds.

From the Air Force:

The F-35A 5th Generation fighter is designed to carry a payload of up to 18,000 pounds using 10 weapon stations. The F-35A features four internal weapon stations located in two weapon bays to maximize stealth capability. The CTOL aircraft can also utilize an additional three external weapon stations per wing if required.

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