Pentagon Loses Track of Weaponry Sent to Yemen in Recent Years

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Chaos in the functionally leaderless country has seen Houthi rebels reportedly take control of Yemeni military’s arms depots and bases

Houthi fighters wearing army uniforms stand atop an armoured vehicle, which was seized from the army during recent clashes, outside the president’s house last month. Photograph: Hani Mohammed/AP

Chaos in Yemen has left the US military unable to monitor the vast arsenal it has spent years providing to its Yemeni counterpart.

Yemen is now functionally leaderless after Houthi rebels took over the capital of Sana’a last month, prompting the resignation of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The rebels are said to control the Yemeni military’s arms depots and bases, giving them effective control of US-provided and other heavy weaponry, including tanks and artillery.

ISIS ‘School of Jihad’ Trains Small Children How to Behead, Torture and Use AK-47s

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Forced viewings of beheadings and torture, training with weapons almost as big as they are and daily lessons in extremist theology: if you’re a boy growing up in ISIS-controlled territory across Syria and Iraq, the word education means something very different to the rest of the world.

Official ISIS media outlets are circulating videos and images which they claim show life in the “School of Jihad”, where children under the age of 10 are encouraged to fire AK-47 rifles and acclimatized to the horrors of war.

Kazakhstan: The Model of Nuclear Disarmament

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Kazakhstan has long been a beneficiary of Russian technology, such as this satellite-launching rocket, but unilaterally disarmed all nuclear weapons inherited from the Soviet Union [AFP]

Twenty years ago today, our young country took a large step in the international arena with our accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As a non-nuclear state, it was a formal sign of Kazakhstan’s determination to work for a world free of nuclear weapons – an ambition which has helped define our country since we first gained independence in 1991.

There were, of course, very good reasons for this commitment. The threat from nuclear weapons, as our President Nursultan Nazabayev has said, strikes a deep chord within our country.

US Unable to Account for $626 Million Worth of Weapons in Afghanistan

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The U.S. Department of Defense cannot account for 747,000 weapons and auxiliary military equipment in Afghanistan.

The United States’ Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), in a new report, notes that “747,000 weapons  and auxiliary equipment” given to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) are unaccounted for. The United States has been training and supporting the ANSF to foster self-sufficiency in the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police.

The ANSF will take over Afghanistan’s precarious internal security situation once the United States and NATO withdraw from the country at the end of this year. Weapons supplies from the U.S. to the ANSF are one of the main ways in which the United States supports the development of the ANSF. According to SIGAR, the unaccounted weapons “are valued at approximately $626 million.”

Facing Massive Strikes, Mining Corporations May Soon Use Weaponized Drones to Control Workers

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A South African technology company is promoting a crowd control drone capable of marking individuals in crowds and firing less than lethal weapons. The firm plans to market the drone to mining corporations, which have recently faced massive strikes and protests throughout South Africa. A trade publication describes the Desert Wolf corporation’s Skunk drone:

US Plans Nearly $1 Billion Arms Deal With Iraq

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Iraqi government forces take part in a military operation in the city of Ramadi, west of the capital Baghdad, on April 26, 2014 (AFP Photo/Azhar Shallal)

The United States plans to sell nearly $1 billion worth of warplanes, armored vehicles and surveillance aerostats to Iraq.

The deal includes 24 AT-6C Texan II light-attack aircraft, a turboprop plane manufactured by Beechcraft that has .50 caliber machine guns, advanced avionics and can carry precision-guided bombs, the Pentagon said.

FBI Agent Arrested in Pakistan on Weapons Charge

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An FBI agent is being held on anti-terrorism charges in Pakistan after authorities found ammunition in a bag as he boarded a plane in Karachi, Pakistani and U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Joel Cox, 32, was detained by airport police in Karachi about 4 p.m. Monday when he tried to board a Pakistan International Airlines flight to Islamabad. He was in possession of 15 bullets and a magazine for a 9mm pistol, police officials said.

Civilians in Ukraine Ready for Civil War

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Citizens of the Ukrainian city of Lugansk, 30 kilometres from the Russian border, are learning how to use Kalashnikovs in case the looming threat of civil war becomes reality.

 

Pro-Russian fervour is sweeping eastern Ukraine and has intensified following the deaths of 24 people in the southern port of Odessa on Friday, many of them pro-Russian militants who died in a building fire.

The Littlest Boy

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Twenty years after Hiroshima, elite American troops trained to stop a Soviet invasion — with nuclear weapons strapped to their backs.

As Capt. Tom Davis stands at the tailgate of the military cargo plane, the night air sweeps through the hold. His eyes search the black terrain 1,200 feet below. He grips the canvas of his reserve parachute and takes a deep breath. 

Navy’s New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH

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The Navy is developing electromagnetic railgun launchers, long-range weapons that launch projectiles using electricity instead of chemical propellants. 

The U.S. Navy is tapping the power of the Force to wage war.

Its latest weapon is an electromagnetic railgun launcher. It uses a form of electromagnetic energy known as the Lorentz force to hurl a 23-pound projectile at speeds exceeding Mach 7. Engineers already have tested this futuristic weapon on land, and the Navy plans to begin sea trials aboard a Joint High Speed Vessel Millinocket in 2016.