Af/Pak & Other News (10/20/2012)

[dump...@hotmail.com]

McKeon presses White House on why C-RAM not deployed in Afghanistan:

http://alert5.com/2012/10/20/mckeon-presses-white-house-on-why-c-ram-not-deploy-in-afghanistan/



Al-Qaida in Afghanistan is attempting a comeback:

http://azstarnet.com/news/world/al-qaida-in-afghanistan-is-attempting-a-comeback/image_0be998dc-31b2-51d7-a283-0185bab57702.html



Afghanistan: Taliban level food warehouse for US:

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/international/asia_pacific/view/20121020afghanistan_taliban_level_food_warehouse_for_us/srvc=home&position=recent




Raytheon-led team graduates first Afghan Air Force pilots on
Warfighter FOCUS program contract:

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Raytheon_led_team_graduates_first_Afghan_Air_Force_pilots_on_Warfighter_FOCUS_program_contract_999.html



CBS interview with 2 Afghan Air Force female helicopter pilots:

http://alert5.com/2012/10/20/cbs-interview-with-2-afghan-air-force-female-helicopter-pilots/



Iran agrees to one-on-one nuclear talks, US sources say:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49489591/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times/#.UIMmz4bAjGs



AQAP's top sharia official killed in recent drone strike:

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/10/aqaps_top_sharia_off.php




Iraq signs contract for second batch of F-16s:

http://alert5.com/2012/10/20/iraq-signs-contract-for-second-batch-of-f-16s/




Syria jets resume bombarding town as clashes erupt:

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Oct-20/192130-syria-jets-resume-bombarding-town-as-clashes-erupt.ashx#axzz29sn2CI9d



Lebanon leader points to Syria in bombing, as protests break out:

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/20/14576521-lebanon-leader-points-to-syria-in-bombing-as-protests-break-out?lite



Israeli Navy seizes Gaza-bound ship 'Estelle':

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=288598



Omar Hammami says 'friction' exists between Shabaab, foreign fighters:

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/10/omar_hammami_says_fr.php



Gadhafi anniversary marked with word of aide's capture:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49488228/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/#.UIMm6obAjGs



Sailor arrested over warship gun incident:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5heajE_4Qu60ucMMXAY24K1W2y9Gg?docId=CNG.8ed9811144222583137a121f8f0db383.1e1



DCNS Launched FREMM Normandie In the Presence of Minister for Defence
and Minister for Economy and Finance:

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/139476/dcns-launches-second-french-fremm-frigate.html




French Navy Seeks Support for New Patrol Vessel:

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20121020/DEFREG01/310200002/French-Navy-Seeks-Support-New-Patrol-Vessel?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE




BBC services jammed in Middle East, Europe:

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/BBC_services_jammed_in_Middle_East_Europe_999.html



Russia Successfully Tests Intercontinental Missile:

http://www.defencetalk.com/russia-successfully-tests-intercontinental-missile-45212/




Russia’s Pantsir-S System Downs Cruise Missile in Test:

http://en.ria.ru/mlitary_news/20121020/176766725.html




YouTube: JGSDF AH-1S with anime character livery:

http://alert5.com/2012/10/20/youtube-jgsdf-ah-1s-with-anime-character-livery/




Canada’s $3B SAR Contest Wide Open:

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20121020/DEFREG02/310200001/Canada-8217-s-3B-SAR-Contest-Wide-Open?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE



Second British F-35B delivered to Eglin--flown by a British pilot:

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2012/10/second-british-f-35b-delivered.html



Northrop Grumman Remotec to Begin Delivering Titus Robot In December:

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/139465/titus-robot-deliveries-to-begin-in-december.html



Hackers punch into NOAA, in 'vengeance for Stuxnet':

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/19/us_weather_service_hack/

[Andrew Swallow]

On 21/10/2012 00:57, dump...@hotmail.com wrote:
> BBC services jammed in Middle East, Europe:
>
> http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/BBC_services_jammed_in_Middle_East_Europe_999.html

So someone is jamming the BBC satellite TV channels. Frequently an
advanced warning of evil intent. Iran is the unofficial suspect.

Andrew Swallow

[Bill]

By now the various interested governments will know exactly who is to
blame.

You can't keep the location of a transmitter that can broadcast the
level of power necessary to jam a satellite TV channel a secret...

[Ken S. Tucker]

True, never trust a Britsy. Likely Brits are whipping up war fever
to get the peasants to join the army, but they have no ability to
learn the truth.
Ken

[Bill]

You think that the British army is using the jamming of BBC foreign
services as a recruiting device?

Look, 'Perfidious Albion' is all very well but that's driving its
Machiavellian schemes to levels that challenges sanity.

[Keith W]

Bill wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Oct 2012 22:46:03 -0700, "Ken S. Tucker"
> <dyna...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Bill wrote:
>>> On Sun, 21 Oct 2012 01:43:52 +0100, Andrew Swallow
>>> <am.sw...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 21/10/2012 00:57, dump...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>>>> BBC services jammed in Middle East, Europe:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/BBC_services_jammed_in_Middle_East_Europe_999.html
>>>> So someone is jamming the BBC satellite TV channels. Frequently an
>>>> advanced warning of evil intent. Iran is the unofficial suspect.
>>>
>>> By now the various interested governments will know exactly who is
>>> to blame.
>>>
>>> You can't keep the location of a transmitter that can broadcast the
>>> level of power necessary to jam a satellite TV channel a secret...
>>
>> True, never trust a Britsy. Likely Brits are whipping up war fever
>> to get the peasants to join the army, but they have no ability to
>> learn the truth.
>
> You think that the British army is using the jamming of BBC foreign
> services as a recruiting device?
>

Well even if we set apart fact that the British Government is
REDUCING army strength this is one of the daftest ideas I
have heard for years and a newly emerging loon is always
a wonderful thing to see.

> Look, 'Perfidious Albion' is all very well but that's driving its
> Machiavellian schemes to levels that challenges sanity.

Ah but this is Usenet where sanity is challenged every day.
After all the true story which is that totalitarian regimes
always try to censor news is so boring.

Keith

[Andrew Swallow]

Particularly when the British Government is saving money by firing
soldiers. At a time of high unemployment recruitment is not a problem.

Andrew Swallow

[Andrew Swallow]

On 21/10/2012 14:01, Keith W wrote:
{snip}

> Ah but this is Usenet where sanity is challenged every day.
> After all the true story which is that totalitarian regimes
> always try to censor news is so boring.

Which leads to the question which truth is the totalitarian regime
trying to hide? Possibilities include:

a. The dictator is weak. Money for troops was stolen by a high up so
several areas have insufficient troops to prevent a revolt.

b. The inner circle are immoral. The men who claim to be good spend
their time at brothels having drunken orgies.

c. They government is showing its power by arresting innocent people and
pardoning guilty ones.

d. Incompetence and corruption mean that the 'crime free country'
actually has a high crime rate.

e. The rules that 'protect the people and environment' are just excuses
for a corrupt civil service to solicit bribes.

f. The 'friends of the workers' are actually bandits who are robbing the
factories and farms. Frequent methods include:

(i) Deliberately causing a famine and making money by selling food for
the poor on the black market.

(ii) Telling the workers that you will save them from having to pay
profit to foreigners by nationalising the firm. Dividends are simply a
different name for interest on loans made to the company. If firm does
not pay the interest on its loans then financiers will not lend it any
more money. As the new owner the government takes the dividends.

(iii) Also nationalisation makes the government the firm's landlord.
The politicians cannot even switch the machines on let alone run a
factory so they quickly become absentee landlords. The new absentee
landlord does however know how to charge the firm enormous rents,
possibly under a different name.

Andrew Swallow

[Keith W]

Andrew Swallow wrote:
> On 21/10/2012 14:01, Keith W wrote:
> {snip}
>
>> Ah but this is Usenet where sanity is challenged every day.
>> After all the true story which is that totalitarian regimes
>> always try to censor news is so boring.
>
> Which leads to the question which truth is the totalitarian regime
> trying to hide? Possibilities include:
>

You missed the biggie when dealing with a theocracy

"The foreign media are trying to corrupt the faithful by
leading them from the one true path as laid down by
the prophet."

This is not of course a problem just with Islam,
the Roman Catholic church spent centuries trying to
control the means of disseminating knowledge.
The Index Librorum Prohibitorum (List of Prohibited Books)
was only abolished in 1966.

Keith

[Paul J. Adam]

On 21/10/2012 13:05, Bill wrote:

> On Sat, 20 Oct 2012 22:46:03 -0700, "Ken S. Tucker"
> <dyna...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>> True, never trust a Britsy. Likely Brits are whipping up war fever
>> to get the peasants to join the army, but they have no ability to
>> learn the truth.
>
> You think that the British army is using the jamming of BBC foreign
> services as a recruiting device?

Not the British Army, the Royal Navy.

We have a cunning three-point plan:-

1. Jam the radios.
2. .....?
3. VICTORY!!!!!

How could it possibly fail?

> Look, 'Perfidious Albion' is all very well but that's driving its
> Machiavellian schemes to levels that challenges sanity.

You assume there was sanity to challenge in the first place.

Now excuse me, the "mailman" (actually a colonel from 14 Intelligence
working undercover) tells me I need to authorise some Chicksands-trained
pigeons to defaecate on Mr Tucker's car...

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

[Ken S. Tucker]

Again I agree, so what is the BBC hiding now, and who gives the orders?
More likely just SOP incompetence.
Ken

[Bill]

On Sun, 21 Oct 2012 19:04:35 +0100, "Paul J. Adam"
<paul....@gmail.com> wrote:


>Now excuse me, the "mailman" (actually a colonel from 14 Intelligence
>working undercover) tells me I need to authorise some Chicksands-trained
>pigeons to defaecate on Mr Tucker's car...

I once got offered a job teaching at DCoI Chicksands.

Didn't take it though...

[Andrew Chaplin]

"Paul J. Adam" <paul....@gmail.com> wrote in news:k61dg3$p9f$1@dont-
email.me:

Fsck me, Mr. Adam, it's people like you wot cause unrestH^H^H^H^mirth.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)

[Paul F Austin]

It is unfortunately easy to jam the uplink for a communications sat. As
a demonstration, a pair of Air Force junior officers put together an
uplink jammer that cost less than a thousand dollars about ten years
ago. The jammer's largest components were directional antennas made from
twelve inch poly pipe spray painted with aluminum paint. I talked to
them at a trade show and they said that the control link is almost
equally vulnerable.

Paul

[Bill]

It's not difficult as the receiver can be swamped by a larger signal
without too much difficulty.

However the uplink isn't what's being jammed here.

[Paul F Austin]

Yes it is. The Space Daily article only says that the signal is jammed,
not what part of the link from terrestrial program source to uplink to
downlink to receive antenna is being disrupted. The Space Daily article
says that other services besides the BBC are affected. What's probably
happening is that someone is doing broadband noise jamming of the
satellite or satellites providing service to the Middle East. It is much
easier to jam the downlink and here's why:

COMSATs work as bent-pipes. The uplink carries the program signal, say
the BBC World Service broadcast, in one fairly narrow band signal. The
sat receives the program signal with an antenna that "sees" a wide area
of the Earth, extracts the program signal and retransmits it in the same
or another band using an antenna that shapes the ground footprint of the
downlink to optimize transmit power usage. In the same uplink beam, many
other users send their signals which are extracted, routed to a downlink
transmitter, multiplexed with with other user signals and sent to the
ground at a higher power level.

Each receiving user sees the satellite through a fairly narrow beamwidth
antenna. Unless the downlink jammer operates within the receive antenna
beam, its signal doesn't make it into the receiver feed. The receive
antenna beam can be thought of as a narrow cone pointing at the COMSAT.
A downlink jammer has to be in that cone or else its signal is rejected
by the antenna. A terrestrial downlink jammer can only be seen by a few
receive antennas. the only way to jam the downlink over a large
terrestrial area is to either use _very_ high transmit power to get
signal in through one of the receive antenna sidelobes or to position
the jammer in an aircraft at very high altitude (or use a jammer in GEO
but that's hard).

A uplink jammer on the other hand can be anywhere in the ground
footprint of the satellite uplink antenna, by its nature a broadbeam
service. A barrage jammer saturates the receiver on the satellite with
high power noise over the entire uplink band, preventing any user, not
just the BBC, from getting through.

Paul

[Andrew Swallow]

And since it is pointing nearly straight up hard to find unless you fly
over it.

Andrew Swallow

[Bill]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:22:07 -0400, Paul F Austin

I stand corrected then.

I'd have thought it would have been reasonably simple to change the
direction of the up-l;ink signal, for example, make it one that could
be received from another satellite.

[Dr. Vincent Quin, Ph.D.]

Please be careful...you're close to revealing stuff classified secret.

[Bill]

Nope...

[Paul F Austin]

On 10/22/2012 1:56 PM, Bill wrote:
>
> I stand corrected then.
>
> I'd have thought it would have been reasonably simple to change the
> direction of the up-l;ink signal, for example, make it one that could
> be received from another satellite.
>

There are COMSATs with cross-links to allow an uplink in (say) the
Americas to be passed to a satellite over the mid-Atlantic but those are
usually used for fixed satellite mobile services rather than broadcast
(I think Thuraya, the newer INMARISAT and the Garudasats operate that
way). On-orbit signal routing is expensive and is only used for services
that need it for their basic operation like satphones. Fixed satellite
broadcast services use only a small amount of signal routing on a single
satellite, possibly splitting an uplink signal onto multiple downlink
transponders.

Paul

[Bill]

I'm surprised it's that unsophisticated.

You'd think an organisation like the BBC would assume someone is going
to try to jam them at some point and would make alternative
arrangements, like cross links...

[Andrew Swallow]

A civilian organisation cannot justify that sort of high cost security
until someone has jammed their satellites.

Andrew Swallow

[Bill]

The BBC must expect to get jammed as, historically, they always have
been. They've always had connections with the various military and
intelligence agencies that could advise them.

It's not so long since MI-5 had an office in TV Center...

This is not some small an unconnected broadcaster, this is, in
reality, an organ of the government with some limited editorial
independence.

Its 'world service' function is directly funded by central government.

[Jim Wilkins]

"Paul F Austin" <pfau...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:xJmdnVaSFeNFyBvN...@supernews.com...

Iridium is a commercial example of crosslinks between satellites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation

I built this laser crosslink demo, initially in my home machine shop
to show Dr. Carlson that I could do more than solder.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993SpCom..11..295C

[Ken S. Tucker]

Vince is right. Knowledge of the uplink could be used to 'take over' the
telecommunications.
Ken

[Bill]

And you think that's a secret?

So far all I've seen is some radio theory.

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Il 21/10/2012 20:04, Paul J. Adam ha scritto:
> On 21/10/2012 13:05, Bill wrote:
>> On Sat, 20 Oct 2012 22:46:03 -0700, "Ken S. Tucker"
>> <dyna...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>>> True, never trust a Britsy. Likely Brits are whipping up war fever
>>> to get the peasants to join the army, but they have no ability to
>>> learn the truth.
>>
>> You think that the British army is using the jamming of BBC foreign
>> services as a recruiting device?
>
> Not the British Army, the Royal Navy.
>
> We have a cunning three-point plan:-
>
> 1. Jam the radios.
> 2. .....?
> 3. VICTORY!!!!!

last time I checked, a good chunk of the RN/USN victory on seas during
WWII was NOT jamming the radio traffic, but eavesdropping into it...

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

[dott.Piergiorgio]

Il 22/10/2012 18:22, Paul F Austin ha scritto:

[snip of interesting technicalities]

in simpler words, one can't exclude that the BBC signal is "simply" a
"collateral casualty" of EW somewhere, e.g. in Syria ?

[Paul F Austin]

I think all the Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) use laser cross-links.
For what it's worth, I proposed a cross-link controller for one of the
constellations in the late 1990s. There were extraordinary pointing
performance requirements and absurdly low (about $20K each) price
targets. We lost the competition. The optics and control pose major
challenges, especially for non-GEO applications. The constellation I
proposed to had satellites with fairly high passing angle-rates (like
Iridium) and a requirement to keep a spot about a half-meter across on
the detector at a range of several thousand kilometers.
Thermally-induced structural jitter (of the spacecraft chassis) was one
of the requirements drivers.

Iridium vindicated something that I told my boss at the time, that the
way to make money in the MSS business was to buy a constellation out of
receivership. All of them cost tremendous amounts of money and the
business model was tenuous. All the sat-phone systems have to compete
with terrestrial phone systems and with the huge capital cost, it was
very difficult to close the case. The people who bought Iridium payed
about $20M for an asset that cost $4-5B. With only $20M in debt, the
users who _needed_ cell phone service away from cell tower networks
could afford the price.

Back to the jamming, the low-cost jammer that I saw would fit in a
closet, to if Iran was responsible, they could place jammers anywhere in
Europe and being very directional and operating in a band reserved for
satellite services, only dedicated airborne ESM surveys could detect
them and once one was found and destroyed, the next could start up,
lather-rinse-repeat. That's a threat that military users of commercial
COMSATs have to deal with as well.

Paul

[Paul F Austin]

On 10/23/2012 10:48 AM, dott.Piergiorgio wrote:
> Il 22/10/2012 18:22, Paul F Austin ha scritto:
>
> [snip of interesting technicalities]
>
> in simpler words, one can't exclude that the BBC signal is "simply" a
> "collateral casualty" of EW somewhere, e.g. in Syria ?

Actually, you can. The uplink/downlink bands are highly directional and
an EW jammer wouldn't waste RF energy in a non-mission related (straight
up) direction. Secondly, an EW jammer wouldn't stay on. The jammer would
be on for the time of its mission and then turn off and go somewhere else.

On the other hand, the USG buys bandwidth on commercial COMSATs to carry
high bandwidth traffic to supplement the dedicated military satellites.
Traffic is routed based on priority and criticality with the most
important stuff going by the most secure route.

Paul

[Andrew Swallow]

On 23/10/2012 15:39, Bill wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:31:29 -0700, "Ken S. Tucker"
> <dyna...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Bill wrote:
>>> On Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:08:07 -0700, "Dr. Vincent Quin, Ph.D."
>>> <dr...@coldine.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Paul F Austin wrote:

{snip}

>>>> Please be careful...you're close to revealing stuff classified secret.
>>>
>>> Nope...
>>
>> Vince is right. Knowledge of the uplink could be used to 'take over' the
>> telecommunications.
>> Ken
>
> And you think that's a secret?
>
> So far all I've seen is some radio theory.
>

It can be surprising how simple the science under Secret weapons is.
Most of it dates back to Newton.

Andrew Swallow

[Bill]

Now the extent to which that is true today is certainly a secret.

However a lack of jamming should not mean you must assume your
communications are being intercepted and read.

[Bill]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:48:55 +0200, "dott.Piergiorgio"
<chied...@ask.me> wrote:

>Il 22/10/2012 18:22, Paul F Austin ha scritto:
>
>[snip of interesting technicalities]
>
>in simpler words, one can't exclude that the BBC signal is "simply" a
>"collateral casualty" of EW somewhere, e.g. in Syria ?
>

Ah.

Probably wrong.

Given the information given earlier it's a highly directional signal
and so it's unlikely to be an accident.