A News Aggregator That Covers The World's Major Wars And Conflicts. Military, Political, And Intelligence News Are Also Covered. Occasionally We Will Have Our Own Opinions Or Observations To Make.
Army sign up 'Monument Men' to save treasures from warzones.
Expert team to travel to warzones to advise on how locating and saving cultural treasures in echoes of George Clooney film.
The Army aims to recruit a ‘Monuments Men’ team of art and archaeology experts to help protect priceless cultural treasures in war zones and choke off terrorist funding from antiquities smuggling.
The specialist unit of up 40 advisers will be staffed by expert reservists with backgrounds in museums, archaeology, the art world or criminal investigations, according to proposals seen by the Telegraph.
The cultural property protection unit will mirror the ‘Monuments Men’ team of British and American art experts who saved priceless European art treasures carried off by the Nazis and were portrayed in a recent George Clooney film.
WNU Editor: I know someone who served in such a unit for the South Korean Army during the Korean war. As he told me .... it was extremely dangerous. They were usually the last ones to leave a town/city before it became occupied by the enemy .... grabbing whatever valuables that they could get their hands on .... literally minutes before the enemy shows up.
The radicalization of Jews and Muslims is squeezing Christians out of the Holy Land—and ISIS’s reported arrival in the biblical city is just the latest sign.
NAZARETH, Israel — At the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, on the site where it is believed the Angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary she would carry the next messiah, Jesus Christ, both Christian and Muslim residents of the city are reflecting on recent news that the so-called Islamic State has come into their midst.
This month, the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, announced the arrest of five Nazareth residents who, it said, had declared their allegiance to ISIS. They had been training with arms, meeting covertly, and preparing for a jihad on “infidels,” the agency said.
Over the past few years, 40 Arab Israelis, often from marginalized communities, reportedly have crossed the border in order to join the fight in Syria and Iraq.
WNU Editor: As bad as it is today in the Middle East for Christians, one cannot help but feel that it is going to get worse.
Iraqi commandos and U.S. airstrikes drove the terror army from much of the city. But that war plan could backfire the next time around.
Pentagon officials hailed the U.S.-trained Iraqi army this week for retaking much of the western Iraq city of Ramadi from the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
But privately, Defense Department officials tell The Daily Beast the fight for Ramadi was a long slog led not by the army, known as the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), but by an elite counterterrorism force, which itself was only able to beat ISIS with U.S.-led coalition airstrikes. The ISF, which have been the beneficiaries of years of U.S. training and funding, didn’t lead the battle, but served in a support role, pointing out ISIS positions for air attacks and holding the roads that led to the city center where troops Monday flew the Iraqi flag.
WNU Editor: This analysis makes sense. This blog on numerous occasions could not understand how a few hundred ISIS fighters could hold-out (for months) against 10,000 Iraqi soldiers backed by Western air-strikes .... now we know why. This campaign took a long time (5 months) because the men who were actually doing the fighting were Iraqi Special Forces .... and all they did was order in air-strikes to destroy ISIS positions. It is also telling that after the battle there are not many ISSI bodies to show to the media .... nor prisoners. So where did they go? Or were they there in the first place?
This coming year is shaping up to be a difficult one for economies that are disproportionately dependent on oil.
This is especially true for Nigeria, where there's a possibility of renewed conflict in the country's oil-producing Niger Delta region, according to SBM Intelligence's recently published "Nigeria in 2016" report.
The global oil picture is stacked against countries like Nigeria, in which oil constitutes some 10% of the country's GDP.
WNU Editor: Oil is the Nigerian government's life-blood (75% of government revenue). Lower oil prices has impacted everything .... and the ripple effect on the Nigerian economy .... as in Venezuela and other OPEC/non-OPEC countries .... is starting to be felt. SBM Intelligence's recently published "Nigeria in 2016" report is here.
A documentary on state television gives a glimpse of Vladimir Putin’s philosophy.
“Do you realize what you have done?” Vladimir Putin demanded at the United Nations in September. The question was a rebuke to the American-led bloc of countries that initially viewed with optimism the Arab Spring, which began five years ago this month, but has since given way to chaos and Islamist violence across once-stable parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Those events, and much else, look different when viewed from Russia than they do from the United States, and a documentary that aired recently on Russian state television helps explain the worldview behind Putin’s question.
Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- December 30, 2015
PENTAGON—Iraqi forces trying to clear Ramadi after seizing the city from Islamic State militants are meeting with heavier resistance than first anticipated.
U.S. military officials initially said “the numbers are small” when asked about how many IS fighters were left in the city after Iraqi forces moved into key areas of Anbar’s provincial capital Monday. On Wednesday, however, officials said Iraqi forces were encountering “pockets of resistance” and sporadic attacks, indicating a larger presence.
“They are still there,” a U.S. official told VOA on condition of anonymity. “They’re expanding their asymmetric tactics to buy more time and space.”
The United States is accusing Iran of testing rockets near one of its aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf as it passed through the Straits of Hormuz. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) denounced the Iranian actions as “highly provocative.” But could Iran actually sink one of the U.S. Navy’s mighty flattops?
According to CENTCOM, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval vessels conducted live-fire drills less than 1,500 yards away from the Nimitz-class carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Bulkeley (DDG-84) destroyer and the French frigate FS Provence on Saturday. Moreover, civilian shipping traffic was in the area.
WNU Editor: If they throw everything .... including the kitchen sink .... there is probably a very good chance that Iran will be able to sink a U.S. aircraft carrier. They will need to do it at the right place, at the right time, and with a lot of luck. But the consequences of such an action would be immense.
It’s part of a decades-old pattern of Iranian provocations.
Nothing grabs the attention of the American military like a member of the “axis of evil” firing rockets close to a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the biggest stick in the Pentagon’s massive arsenal.
That’s just what Iran did Saturday, shooting several unguided rockets about 1,500 yards from the USS Harry S. Truman and a pair of smaller U.S. and French warships in the Strait of Hormuz. That’s the bottleneck between the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea through which 17 million barrels of oil, 20% of world demand, flows daily.
More News On Yesterday's Incident When An Iranian Military Exercise Resulted In Rockets Being Fired Close To The US Aircraft Carrier Harry S. Truman
The U.S. Treasury Department is close to announcing sanctions against several companies and individuals for their ties to Iran’s ballistic missile program, a person familiar with the matter said.
The Obama administration, which is implementing a landmark accord aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear weapons plans, was criticized earlier this month by Republican Senator Bob Corker for lax response to Iran’s possible launch of a ballistic missile and has said it would take appropriate action.
Separately, a U.S. official said Iran launched a highly provocative rocket test on Saturday near its warships and commercial traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the Associated Press reported.
Iraq's prime minister accused Turkey on Wednesday of failing to respect an agreement to withdraw its troops from the country's north and its foreign minister said if forced, Iraq could resort to military action to defend its sovereignty.
The diplomatic dispute flared after Turkey deployed a force protection unit of around 150 troops earlier this month, citing heightened security risks near Bashiqa military base where its troops were training an Iraqi militia to fight Islamic State insurgents in nearby Mousl.
Iraqi security forces have had only a limited presence in Nineveh province, where the camp is located, since collapsing in June 2014 in the face of a lightning advance by Islamic State.
I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.
