Two commandos from Israel's elite undercover anti-terror unit have been suspended and are facing expulsion from the service amid accusations they shot a camel.

The soldiers, from the feared Duvdevan Unit, have been charged with animal cruelty and firearms offences after a video of the incident surfaced.

Allegedly filmed by one of the men, the clip shows the off-duty pair driving past a camel by a sand dune near the Dead Sea while one of them fires at the helpless animal.

Shocking footage shows gunman shooting a CAMEL in the neck

kau pewai gi la detail budak2 kau haha .

Italy’s prime minister has announced that the country will send 450 soldiers to protect Iraq’s most important dam, The Local reports.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced that the troops will be deployed to protect the Mosul Dam from the extremist group ISIS, also known as the Islamic State. The militants currently control the city of Mosul, which is just more than 30 miles from the dam.

Speaking on national television Tuesday, Renzi announced that the initial call for soldiers to be deployed to the dam came from an Italian company that has an economic interest in the dam.

“The call [to protect the dam] was made by an Italian company … and we will send 450 of our men there to help protect it alongside the Americans,” Renzi said.

The Syrian Army has regained control over the Marj al-Sultan airbase on the outskirts of Damascus for the first time in three years. The first video from the area, courtesy of Ruptly, shows badly damaged tanks and helicopters and destroyed buildings.

Turkey's armed forces have sent military vehicles, including tanks, into civilian areas in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of the country, according to photographs published on Wednesday.

The U.S. arms package being offered to Taiwan includes the following items, according to Congressional sources:

* Two of the four surplus Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates that Congress authorized by law for transfer to Taiwan a year ago. Together, the ships will cost Taiwan $190 million to acquire and refurbish.

* 201 Javelin shoulder-fired anti-armor missiles for $77 million.

* 769 TOW 2B anti-armor missiles for $268 million.

* Thirty-six AAV-7 Amphibious Assault Vehicles for $375 million.

* Ten Link 11/Link 16 Communication systems for naval vessels for $120 million.

* Minesweepers for $108 million.

* Thirteen Phalanx ship defense systems for $416 million.

* 250 shoulder-fired STINGER anti-aircraft missiles for $217 million.

* No-cost lease of the Bilateral Network System — a communications link between U.S. Pacific Command and Taiwan’s military.

The U.S. State Department couldn’t immediately comment on the prospective deal by press time. But the only big-ticket items in the package are the two frigates, which would boost some of Taiwan’s capabilities.

For some time, Syrian rebels have been struggling to hold onto a narrow but crucial strip of territory between the northern border town of Azaz and the contested city of Aleppo. This corridor is the lifeline for antiregime forces in the north because it is their land bridge to Turkey. Yet it now faces imminent threats on several fronts: from the east by the Islamic State (IS), from the west by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), and from the south by the Syrian army and its allies.

In fact, the Azaz corridor has become the epicenter of the war, with hostilities intensifying throughout the area over the past two weeks. Everything seems to indicate that a Kurdish offensive supported by Russian aviation is underway to the west, coordinated with a developing campaign by the Syrian army and proxy militias on the outskirts of Aleppo. Meanwhile, Russia is apparently not taking action against the IS forces pushing into the area from the north. And the prospect of direct Turkish intervention looms over the fighting, especially if the corridor should fall.

Currently, the tens of thousands of civilians and fighters remaining in eastern Aleppo have been devastated by bombings and are surrounded by the Syrian army. Recovering the entire city and its environs is crucial for Assad, and that goal once again requires cutting the supply road of Azaz. In that scenario, the surrounded rebels in Aleppo would be forced to evacuate the city, as happened in Homs. To be sure, ousting the rebels will be difficult -- although only five kilometers separate the main regime-controlled Shiite pockets northwest of Aleppo (Bashkuy and Zahra-Nubl), the area in question is a dense urban zone, so the army would likely be forced to go house by house. Moreover, that small corridor is of high strategic value to the rebels, so it is very well defended. The Russian air force is intensively bombing rebel positions in Anadan and Haritan, suggesting that a general offensive is brewing. Yet if the regime and its Shiite allies want to succeed this time, they will need the PYD's support.

The PYD is present in the mountainous Kurd Dagh area around Afrin, whose entire population is Kurdish. It is also present in the Sheikh Maqsoud district north of Aleppo, a large informal suburb. The Kurds hope to link Kobane with Afrin in order to make their "Rojava" (the PYD's name for Kurdish territory in Syria) a single entity. But Turkey strongly objects to this objective. It complained about the PYD's annexation of Tal Abyad last spring and bombed Kurdish forces opposite Jarabulus in June. Ankara is adamant that the PYD not cross the Euphrates River to seize Jarabulus, even though the city is under IS control.

The latter scenario is precisely what Vladimir Putin wants. Ever since Turkey shot down one of his bombers last month, he is bent on seeking revenge. Moreover, he already offered military support to the Kurds in September to help them link Afrin with Kobane by seizing Azaz and Jarabulus. The PYD then attempted to raise the stakes with their U.S. partner, but without success apparently. Earlier this month, however, Moscow delivered weapons to the 5,000 Kurdish fighters in Afrin, while Russian aircraft bombed a convoy of trucks that crossed the Turkish border into Syria at Bab al-Salam. Rebel positions north of Aleppo were struck as well, preparing the ground for an offensive by the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG), the PYD's main militia.

Of course, the Islamic State could seize the opportunity to overrun Azaz before the YPG. IS forces have already captured the village of Kafrah, only ten kilometers down the road from Azaz. It occupied the town a few months before the fratricidal fighting between rebel groups in winter 2014. But this does not bother the Russians or Assad, whose primary interest is to see the road between Aleppo and Turkey cut -- whether by IS or the PYD.

The Azaz corridor may or may not fall, but the bigger U.S.-Turkish goal remains securing the Marea-Jarabulus corridor from IS, and any future Azaz-Jarabulus corridor if Azaz falls to the group. In other words, if the corridor is overrun, broader US-Turkish policy in this area (backed by allies from Incirlik) would essentially become two steps forward, one step back.

The Syrian Arabs are allied with Kurdish fighters, and the initial shipment of US ammunition unnerved NATO ally Turkey, which is sensitive to any operations that could benefit Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

The Syrian Arabs number around 5,000 fighters. With the Kurds and others, they form the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces seeking to claw back land from Islamic State, officials say.

The US officials said the fighters were preparing to eventually move toward al-Shadadi, which is located on a strategic network of highways.

Capturing it would help isolate Raqqa, Islamic State's de facto capital.

US Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the US-led coalition against Islamic State, said the militants used al-Shadadi to stage weapons, equipment and personnel for distribution throughout the battlefield.

Japan courts Indonesia with defence equipment as it seeks to counter China’s influence in Asia

The “two-plus-two” security talks are the first between Japan and a member of Asean

KYODO IN TOKYO

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 17 December, 2015, 5:54pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 17 December, 2015, 5:54pm

Japan has agreed with Indonesia to start negotiations on the transfer of defence equipment and technology to the Southeast Asian country, as they aimed to forge stronger ties amid China’s muscle-flexing in the South China Sea.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida made the announcement during a joint press conference with his Indonesian counterpart as well as the Japanese and Indonesian defence ministers, following their first “two-plus-two” security talks in Tokyo.

The agreement was reached during the first such talks between Japan and a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

Japan has been trying to boost security ties with the 10-country Asean amid China’s muscle-flexing in the South China Sea.

Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani said dialogue is the key to settle disputes in the South China Sea. Some Asean members are embroiled in overlapping territorial claims in that sea with Beijing.

Retno Marsudi, Indonesia’s foreign minister, meanwhile, said her country and Japan also agreed to set up a hotline between their countries’ foreign and defence ministers, and to regularly hold two-plus-two talks.

The ministers said they also discussed counterterrorism measures, with Indonesian Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu expressing hope for bilateral cooperation to fight terrorism.

While Japan and Indonesia do not have overlapping territorial claims with China in the South China Sea, unlike Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines among Asean members and Taiwan, both countries see the importance of upholding international law and freedom of navigation regarding the sea, Japanese officials said.

Experts in Asean affairs noted the strategic importance for Japan to forge a two-plus-two framework with Indonesia given its clout in Asean and Tokyo’s need to demonstrate even stronger ties with the regional bloc amid a severe security environment in Asia.

“Indonesia is a leader in Asean and has a major influence in Southeast Asia’s international politics. It has a big say on how Asean is moving forward,” said Mie Oba, a professor of international relations at the Tokyo University of Science.

“For Japan, setting up and launching a two-plus-two framework with regional-power Indonesia is significant in boosting Japan’s relations with Asean,” Oba said.

There is no real comparable amphibious drone in the US system. If the PLAN picks up use of the U560, its large size and amphibious takeoff/landing capabilities could offer Chinese surface warships a fast off board reconnaissance capability, with quite different range and capability than the helicopters, manned and soon unmanned that the US Navy has on board its ships. For instance, a Type 052D guided missile destroyer could hoist a U560 drone onto the water and send it off on a longer range hunt for enemy submarines, warships and missile launchers, or even conduct electronic warfare (much how World War II battleships used seaplanes to scout ahead). The U560's amphibious and autonomous capabilities also mean that it could be used to supply Chinese island garrisons with a heavy UAV capability.

The future of Chinese unmanned warfare is likely to be not just in the type of platforms they field, but also their integration alongside manned systems, including in roles the US military is not contemplating.

What these missiles have in survivability and range, however, they lack in speed. Compared to the Chinese and Russian missiles, the LRASM and Tomahawk are only capable of subsonic operation. This is precisely why the Navy should, in addition to procuring the LRASM/Tomahawk, move to collaborate with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and the Japanese Ministry of Defense, the developers of the XASM-3.

Procuring the XASM-3 is a tactical no-brainer for the Navy. Like the LRASM, it is a stealthy missile, yet unlike its American counterparts, its ramjet engine allows it to reach speeds in excess of Mach 3. This combination of speed and low-observability may prove decisive in a future A2/AD conflict, as the XASM-3 would be able to both evade sensors and outrun legacy defensive systems. Deployment with stealthy aircraft like the F-35 or B-2 would help mitigate its relatively short range of ~90 nm, but co-development between the U.S. and Japan on the missile’s propulsion could conceivably overcome this hurdle and also allow for ship-based deployment. Even at its current stage, the combination of ship-based LRASM and stealth aircraft-based XASM-3 deployment would represent an devastating fielding of stealth ASM capabilities.

While co-development and procurement of the XASM-3 makes sense both tactically and strategically, then, it would also prove to be a technological boon to the Navy. An agreement between the two governments would allow American defense industrial firms to peek into the propulsion technology of the world’s fastest ASM, and perhaps co-produce a land attack version of the XASM-3. Moreover, it would permit the Navy to develop advanced countermeasures and tactics to defeat supersonic ASM fielded by the Chinese and Russians.

With even its newest warships like the USS Zumwalt unable to field (already dated) ASM capability, the Navy’s traditional blue-water advantage in the Asia-Pacific is at risk. Submarines and aircraft alone cannot compensate for a lack of cutting-edge ASM technologies, especially in the face of the steadily mounting potential of adversaries to knock out Navy ships with fast missiles. While the Navy can and should move along with the LRASM/Tomahawk, MHI’s XASM-3 represents a unique intersection of technological superiority, tactical supremacy and strategic wisdom that make it a must-buy for the United States.

NATO plans to send air defence support to Turkey partly to minimise the risk of Ankara shooting down another Russian warplane, while assuaging its fears of a spillover from the conflict in Syria, senior alliance sources say.

"NATO rules of engagement are more cautious than those of Turkey," said one NATO source.

"It's a face-saving show of allied support for Turkey, while trying to get them to behave more intelligently," said Nick Witney, a former head of the European Defence Agency now at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

By sending some of NATO's fleet of mushroom-topped AWACS surveillance planes to patrol the airspace along Turkey's border with Syria, chiefly to coordinate several allied air forces operating out of Incirlik Air Base, NATO will help manage Turkish airspace

NATO will increasingly take over management of Turkish airspace, so the Turks will have to be mindful of the fact that we will have eyes in the sky that can give a second opinion on any situation," the NATO source said.

An unconfirmed report from Syria suggests that ISIS has started using small drones packed with explosives as weapons. The first attack was a failure, but if the report is accurate, then it signals a dangerous new terror threat.

The report showed pictures of the remains of a homemade attack drone. It was apparently shot down, along with a second drone that exploded, by Kurdish YPF ("People's Defence Units") fighters in Syria. The caption says that both drones carried explosives, and that no YPF fighters were injured in the incident.

A People’s Liberation Army Naval Air Force (PLANAF) from the 4th Division, 12th Air Regiment, crashed this evening in Zeguo town, Taizhou city, Zhejiang Province. Both pilots ejected safely.

Postings on Chinese Internet suggests the aircraft’s Russian AL-31F engine failed in mid-air.

The aircraft features several new features, including a large area display (LAD), embedded training systems, and an aerial refuelling capability.

Aesthetically, the most striking change from the original T-50 is the addition of a large dorsal hump.