MILNET: Whatsnew

June

Updated: We've added our finishing touches to the New Weapons briefing for Q2 of 2008, putting this issue of the brief to bed until we revisit in the July to August timeframe.
Added: We've finished up the Photoint exercise, completing a look at major Iranian Army installations in Iran. This brief is a bit less accurate for a number of locations...primarily tue to a real lack of physical location information and the difficulty in discerning a heavy industrial area and/or wide construction zone from a base. Also, in locations like Tehran, a mix of Amry and Air Force faciliites as well as confusion over protection versus operational forces and their support activities creates plenty of error in indentifying sites from overhead reconaissance. One factor that is self-mitigating in all this...as Google Earth updates their satellite imagery, particular time-locked events such a helicotper, aircraft or artillery piece in a particular position is captured by our still images, thus we won't necessairly loose the imagery. Currently we have also archieved offline closeups of key target imagery that leaves no doubt as to the uses of various sites. Thus attempts to obsfucate by Iran will fail. One image, for instance, shows a number of helicopters buzing around in the air where soccor statidum is full of a mob of celebrants...possibly a visit by some dignatry with resultant security. We'll revisit the Google Earth locations (stored in the brief) again next year to see if the imagery has been updated.
Added: We've added a brief tutorial on how to get the most out of the Google Earth Military Community annotations including our own MILNET produced "placemark" package.
Added: We've built a page that lists Iranian Naval Bases and includes links to Google Earth images and static images stored on the MILNET site...several can be explored from the satellite images to discover the in-port ships...small corvettes, coastal patrol boats, torpedo and missile boats. The Google Earth Military Community contributes a few annotations to a number of these bases as well.
Added: We've built a page that lists the Military Airbases in Iran, with links to Google Earth and a screenshot of the satellite image. Not a lot of aircraft on the ground either in civilian or military fields in Iran...this intelligence tool tells the real tale...there is little to no worry about an Iranian defense of their homeland via air.
Stats: We won't be posting a full set of stats with charts and the like this month. We are entering our summer hiatus which means we are preparing a number of articles to be finished before our taking some time off. Note that in May, MILNET exceeded 2.1 million hits, and 595,000 pageviews for the month, totalling up 131,000+ sessions on an average of some 4,200+ sessions per day. We are excedding 31GB of traffic flow per month now, far, far less than the figure our 24x7 co-lo can accomodate, but a goodly datacomm bandwidth never-the-less. These stats are an all time record for MILNET and calculates out to about 120% of last year's stats for May. Thanks for coming to visit us in record new numbers for the entire last six months. Oh, and the MILNET Chief Editor's Blog is now up to 30,000+ visitors per month, the most popular destination on the site.
Update: We updated the Russian Military page with data from 2007-2008, utilizing a number of sources on the Internet. You might take a look, the picture for the Russians is dismal according to every source including our non-Internet "in the know" sources. We shouldn't forget, however, that a rusty bucket sub can still launch a 10 MIRVed nuclear weapon from any of the three coastal waters of the U.S., or anywhere into Europe. Russia still holds some 8,600 warheads, they have not stood down their nuclear forces, and their submarine are still active anywhere in the world they want them to go.
Added: Good vs. Bad Jihadists - A reprint of the very brief few lines from Walid Phares, a guest professor at the CI Centre, speaking on Osama bin-Laden's lastest message...as if there are any good Jihadists. Please point out to us any Jihadist we should not schedule for termination. Do you wait for them to kill, maim or simply injure someone? If they even hint at refusing to be captured, we believe they just lost their right to surrender. We hope Mr. Phares expands on this very brief statement -- Keep an eye on CI Centre for more. You might also look at their great article on the Muslim Brotherhood and its infiltration into America. Very scary stuff!
Added: Several new items opened up our changes for June of 2008. First, we have added the Headline Service. This is not a daily headline service, however it does sover material we believe fits the interests of our visitors...judged by our analysis of the top viewed pages on the site. We've broken them down into Political, Military/Intelligence, Terrorism and Immigration. We should note that our very refined search of news will attempt to differentiate between the broad spectrum of news items in a topic area...for instance, we look at Immigration issues that fit in a national security viewpoint of immigration, and thus focus on border control and threats to the U.S. population. There are at a minimum, one to two new stories a day in this refined topic area alone, and we then cherry pick those that have most the impact. We do this on all four topic areas. Second we have published several new briefs and one opinion piece inspired by current events:

Petro Terrorism - Where Your Oil $ Goes - A look at how your gasoline dollar or paying your electric bill is helping fund terrorism.
Prisons and Gangs - The Process - A nationwide threat consists of the links between the prison recruting ground and illegal alien criminals.
Heatlhcare Crisis - Immigration Ties? - A national tragedy that mainstream media refuses to report - how illegals are a major part of the healthcare crisis and how the Left wants to solve it by you paying for the illegals rather than deport them or stop them at the border.

May

We call your attention to the article written in February of 2008, which today is VERY appropriate to this election cycle. Left or right, you need to read the opinion piece, Invisible Threat: Leftist's Blind Spots, 2/25/2008.
NOTE on most Popular: The top two articles found on MILNET in May, 2008 are the briefing on U.S. Navy Ships, and the MILNET Opinion piece, The Cold War Is On. The article on a new cold war brewing has been in the top ten since January 2008 and the top five since March 2008. Also in the top five for nearly a year is the MILNET briefing on Hispanic Gangs and the growth of cross-border infiltration on the U.S. Southern Border. Incidentally, MILNET is on track to hit 2 million hits in May (1.988 million on 5/27/2008). Thanks to all of you for helping us reach that popularity milestone.
Updated: We've finally added some 3300+ records to our internet research database on Intelligence Agencies and Intelligence Organizations. Some searches to try: fill in %Intelligence Agency% in the SubCategory field or try %Organization% in the SubCategory field. We've added Espionage cases, prosecutions, and techniques for this first cut at covering intelligence topics in the database.
Updated: We updated the Worldwide Terrorist Cases page with an entry for Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer finally caught in Thailand and now indicted in the Southern District of New York on four counts including conspiracy to kill Americans, employees or officers, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile. The sealed indictment was revealed by the DOJ on May 6, 2008.
Updated: The Pakistani Violence page continues to be updated regularly, with suicide attacks in both April and May. While the pace of attacks reported has slackened considerably since the period around the March elections, the fact remains that Pakistan joins such countries as Somalia, Thailand,Afghanistan, Iraq and Algeria as a place noted for hot and active terrorism. We should note that the current waves of violence stem from the elections as well as Musharaff's crackdown on Islamic extremists in the northwest of the nation.
Updated: We updated the medals page...it was pointed out that we had left out the Korean Defense Service Medal, established by President George Bush in 2002, honoring those serving in Korea currently, as well as those serving since the treating ending the Korean War in 1954. We also corrected the prescendence in several places in the service medals section.
Updated: The New Weapons page has been updated to reflect the additions of several weapons systems in the news, including, remarkably (science fiction coming true) a BAE contract to develop surveillance devices that look like insects, snakes, etc. Incredible.
Updated: We also updated the Major Documents page to reflect the mirroring of the reports on terrorism generated by the State Department since 2004 -- replacing the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report with the "Country Studies on Terrorism" report. All this is done by requirement of law -- Congress requiring the State Department to research and compile information on global terrorism.

April

Added: We've been using a research database for sometime now and just recently updated it to something we thought might be useful and interesting to our visitors. Take a look at our Categorized Search Engine Database. The public version is still in prototype stage, containing only our most recent research (links to sources). We are slowly updating the data and most importantly, editing the ratings numbers. You can click on the URLs in the database and go directly to the research sources.
Updated: Pakistani Political Parties: Our daily Google search uncovered a report that we're having trouble confirming, but it is so important we thought we'd at least give it a mention in our page on Pakistani politics. The article written by Bruce Loudan of "The Australian" says the U.S. made an attempt to win over some control over Pakistani Nuclear Command and Control, but the government (one would have to say Musharraf?) rejected the idea. Whether an accurate report or not, the article also says the "government in Islambad" is working with the chief Militant in the north to work out a deal by negotating with the extremists there. Great. As we said, we cannot confirm either report through our usual three sources, so we'll keep an eye out in the next few days for separatecorroboration.
Updated: We corrected a broken link on the Al-Qaeda Network graphic -- you can now navigate from the main network graph to Al-Qaeda in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. More detailed dossier are in the works, however verfiying data and getting permission to use photos is still hampering the work on this project.
Updated: We've added the case of eight men accussed of plotting to carry liquid explosives aboard transatlanic airliners and explode them over the ocean to our Worldwide Terrorist Cases page. The trail began on April 2.
Updated: We added the case of Ahmed Ghailani to our Terrorist Cases page. Ghailani was indicted along with the 9/11 hijackers and Osama bin Laden in 2001, and is being held at GITMO. On Monday, March 31, he was formally charged with his attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania in 1998. He will be tried by the U.S. DoD's Military Commission, awaiting a final judicial review of the case before the trial date is set.

Q1 2008

March

Updated: We've added a reference to the ARH-70A Arapaho to our popular Helo Brief. The helicopter just going into service with the U.S. Army, intended to begin replacing the Kiowa light chopper. The Arapaho is based upon the well traveled and ultra reliable Bell 407.
Updated: We've began updating the New Weapons page for Q2. Take a look, it is already looking quite intersesting. A video on FutureFirewpower.com is highly recommended, showing unbelievable (we mean it!!!!) maneuverability of the F-22. More to come, so keep an eye out for our next What's New entry.
Updated: The Pakistani Political Parties page was updated...the new Pakistani Prime Minister Ifitkhar Gulani has ordered the judges locked up under house arrest by Musharraf released. He will be sworn in my Musharraf on 3/25/2008. Analysts are watching to see if the Parliament carries through with its promise to reinstae the judges -- a direct threat to Musharraf's rule.
Updated: We've added the Islamic Jihadist Group (a.k.a. Islamic Jihadist Union) to our terrorist profile main index page. The IJU claimed its suicide bomber Cueneyt Ciftci, drove a truck bomb into a guard post in Afghanistan killing two U.S. soldiers. The group was designated a terrorist group by the U.S. in 2004 and the U.N. has concurred. As predicted some time ago by analysts and MILNET, the group in Germany includes several caucasions, breaking the typical arabic racial profile.
Updated: We've added a reference to our Pakistani Political Parties page, documenting that the Pakistani Parliament has convened for the first time since Perez Musharraf took over the government of Pakistan. For those wondering why we provide so much focus on Pakistan...it is for the very simple reason that this is the center of the Al Qaeda recruiting grounds in the past, and the country continues to be a hotbed for Militant Islamic Jihadists. It is perhaps the one of two places in the world (Afghanistan is the other) where people such as the main group of Al Qaeda and the Taliban can survive. And while Musharraf has appeared to be a staunch ally of the U.S. and the U.S. returns the favor, the fact remains the country continues to provide safe haven for those attacking U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, and of course the northern areas of Pakistan continue to plague the entire country with violence created by radical nutcases of just about every description under the Militant Jihadist banner. And while Musharraf is clearly a dictator, it is also just as unclear how Pakistan will survive without a strongman to lead them. Currently, there is no leader in Pakistan who appears to have the strength of character (according to our sources) to lead Pakistan out of this crisis. And has been pointed out several times by analysts as well as us here at MILNET, the stakes are high, with the opportunity for Nuclear Weapons to pass into the hands of terrorists should the new government be overrun by the Jihadists. While the more radical parties (including the extremist religious groups) did not win more than a few seats in Parliament, it is the strength of the government that will ensure their survival, not something as simple as the popular vote.
Updated: We've addded a reference to a scif-fi come true weapon on our New Weapons page for Q1, 2008. A plasma pulse rifle (PDF: 129KB) whose "round" (or is it "bolt"?) attacks at a speed near Mach 5. Wow! The weapon is proposed in response to an RFP from the Pentagon for a next generation rifle. I know it sounds like Star Trek Next Generation....not Army, but there it is. We also latched onto a neat presentation (PDF: 2.2MB) from Northrop Grumman which discusses their HEL (High Energy Laser) iniatiatives being developed for the DoD...projects that are nearing the end of development and beginning to head towards production, which includes the HEL bomber concept a new idea that could be mounted, one would assume, in a future rev of the Stealth Bomber.
Updated: We updated our Worldwide Terrorist Cases brief, Mohammed "Osama bin London" Hamid was sentenced to 7-1/2 years in prison for conspiring to murder non-believers and running terrorist training camps in the U.K.
Updated: We executed a quick search on gang member arrests for MS-13, and other hispanic gangs since writing our article on Hispanic Gangs brief, and added updates of some 30 arrests. The list is much longer...we simply ran out of the alloted time. The gang members cross illegally into the U.S. across the U.S. Mexican border and then migrate all over the country, even as far away as Hawaii, Boston, Massachusetts, New Jersey or Connecticut. Some of the gangs include Latin Kings, Jamacian Posse, Mexican 18th Street Gang, the Vietnamese Black Crew, and Mexican Surenos. The number of arrests are only a portion of the actual gang members and the crimes they commit, and our short jab at research yields a frightening conclusion. There is an epedimic and while Homeland Security has vastly improved the capture and prosecution since our original briefing, they are not winning the battle caused by our wide open border with Mexico. We should also point out that few arrests of gang members at the border have been documented in news or border patrol articles, indicating policing our cities is sort of fixing the symptom of the problem, not the real cause.
Updated: We've added reference on our Nuclear Terrorism page to the statements by Colombian V.P. Francisco Santos that Colombian FARC rebels may be acquiring the necessary uranium to build a dirty bomb. This scary development matches that of analysts who've warned for over a decade that the next big step for terrorists is to set off a dirty bomb or worse, a full out nuclear weapon.
Updated: The Iran Sanctions page has been updated to reflect the 3/3/2008 vote to impose harsher sanctions on Iran which include the imposition of what could be used to create a sea and air blockade -- allowing for inspections at sea or of aircraft for suspected goods that could be used in trade of proliferation items.
Updated: The New Weapons page has been updated to reflect the contract award for the KC-X future aerial tanker program, the contract being awarded to Northrop-EADS, which includes a controversial feature -- the French Airbus corp will manufacture the majority of the aircraft in Europe, which has some in Congress fighting mad.
Updated: We've updated several of the aircraft tables, including the Special Operations Aircraft and C-130 pages to reflect information on variants of the EC-130, the MH-47 used in Special Forces/Intelligence missions, as well as the AC-X, a program to mount the Airborne Tactical Laser on a AC-130 gunship. We also came across a nicely laid out PDF of the Special Operations Command 2006 strategy paper on the future of Special Forces, well worth reading, so we added that to the Special Operations Forces page.

February

Added: In response to a number of questions and in anticipation of the pending March 1, 2007 U.N. Security Council's dliberations on a third round of sanctions on Iran, we have created a new page, Sanctions on Iran. The briefing includes both U.S. and U.N. sanctions, the latter obligating the International Community to embargo Iran, however, U.N. sanctions requirements have no "teeth" to them and are only as good as modifications to the member nation's import and export regulations to enforce the sanctions.
Updated: We've added information on our Worldwide Terrorist Cases page to the successful conviction and sentencing of a Spanish cell of Jihadists in Madrid, and conviction of another set of terrorists in London relating to terrorist training camps some of which were actually in the U.K.. Convicted in the U.K. was a man who dubbed himself, "Osama bin London".
Opened: We've opened up the MILNET Archives to allow you to peruse the directory directly. There are some 208MB of primarily PDFs as well as a few JPGs and one or HTML files. The topics range from CRS reports on topics of interest to the U.S. Congress, as well as papers and thesis from politicians and War College (Army, Navy, and Air Force) officers. There are also a number of reports and policy statements from the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense, and the White House. And finally, there are a number of reports from Commissions, the CIA, and others on issues ranging from 9/11 failures to the text of bills relating to areas of interest to MILNET visitors. One of the most popular hits on our archive is the animated version of the test of a Fuel-Air Explosive. We hope you find the information informative and useful.
Added: Flashpoints, February 2008. The lastest in our look at the hotspots in the world today. You'll notice we've added a lot of material for Iraq including General David Petraeus' September, 2007 testimony before Congress (written statement and slides) detailing how the surge was working...something barely reported on the major media back then and not at all today.
Added: The Chief Editor has added a new opinion piece prompted by similarities between the Left in both the U.K. and U.S. The Left has blindspots in critical areas that will spell the end of our civilzations...too dramatic? Hardly, read the opinion piece, Invisible Threat: Leftist's Blind Spots.
Added: We've added a new look at anti-satellite weapons, prompted of course by the demonstration of a surface-to-orbit anti-satellite capability by the U.S.S. Lake Erie (CG-70). The briefing includes some history and a wealth of follow up reading that will make anyone who patiently goes through the briefing and the follow-up, somewhat of an expert on the issues surrounding and the differing technologies for, anti-satellite weapons. The briefing also refers to articles describing both the Chinese and Russian anti-satellite programs, and debunks the idea that there is some sort of NEW arms race...this has been going on since the 1960s. We also added a reference to LEAP-AS, our designation for the new U.S. capability, to the New Weapons page.
Updated: We've updated the Pakistani Political Parties page to reflect early results of the February 19 elections in Pakistan. We'll update again when we have more solid data. For now, it's clear the late Benazir Bhutto's party has taken the National Assembly by a 10% or more margin as well as the Sindh province's Provincial Assembly. A strong second in Punjab and the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) clearly means the PPPP will most likely have a huge majority in the countries provincial assembly elected Senate. Sadly 12 election areas, some of them rather large postponed or cancelled their elections with 10 of those due to the deaths of candidates from their areas.
Updated: You might want to visit the MILNET Chief Editor's Blog. He's taken issue with politics this election year, the House clearly using political attack at the expense of National Security, liberals making impossible promises they know they never have to keep once in office, and the expected liberal press beginning their attacks on the leading GOP candidate.
Updated: Continued to update the table of suicide attacks in Pakistan in our recent update on Pakistan Violence and Jihadists, including the most recent (as of Feb 16) that killed 37 just days before the Feb 18 elections there.
Updated: Noted in the Changes to the U.S. Intelligence Community briefing, the passage through the U.S. of the new version of the FISA Act (FISA Amendments Act of 2007). The old version is still available on MILNET as well.
Added: Pakistani Political Parties - More difficult to follow than the world's soccor teams, the political parties in Pakistan change names and personnel so quickly, even a scorecard does not seem to help. Well, we're trying. Our "scorecard" is a MILNET table listing the party acronym, names, and for the major contributors, a brief on their history, leaders and goals. Very appropriate for this very violent runup to elections in Pakistan, a scene that makes Western politics (and especially those currently underway for our 2008 elections) seem so tame.
Updated: We've updated the New Weapons Page to reflect our latest effort for Q1, 2008. We've tried to sift through important new technology as well as under-reported technology such as the Chinese Type 98 which continues to evolve under a well funded force modernization by the Chinese. A few almost laughable projects peeked our interest...go look and see if you can find our entry for the "Frissbee of Death". Seriously.
Updated: We updated our Worldwide Terrorist Cases page with the sentencing of five who gave aid to the failed bombing conspirators who attempted to set bombs in the London mass transit system two weeks after the very deadly July 2005 bombings. All five defendants were given between 7 and 17 years in prison. We also added a reference to the Spanish court's release of some 10 of several dozen defendents who were charged in lesser acts for the Madrid train bombings. These particular defendants were found guilty, however it is very likely their sentences were small enough to qualify for time served under a special law in the Spanish courts. The major conspirators and leader remain in prison as the judges ponder their sentences.

January

Updated: We updated our Terrorist Case page with Jose Padilla's sentence of 17 years and 4 months. His co-conspirators also received sentences (15 years and 8 months and 12 years and 8 months), all far less than the life sentences expected.
Added: We've added a briefing which looks at the Jihadists behind the violence in Pakistan today -- includes a full listing of the known terrorist groups, local miltants as well as a color map indicating where the major groups live!
Added: In response to numerous requests for hardcopy of our most popular briefings, we've opened the MILNET store. There you will find color copies of our briefings fixed in a rigid cover and bound with folding pin or clamp technology (larger, multi-briefing compilations). Take a look and add one to your library!
Added: Since our 2001 AFI brief eeded updating, we've taken another look at the military balance between India and Pakistan. This was prompted by cnoncerns of recent Jihadist violence in Pakistan and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto which threatens to create conditions where there may soon be a regime change in this nuclear armed muslim populated nation.

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