SOF

Niger Agrees to Grant Authority to U.S. Military to Arm Drones

Reports from CNN earlier this week are saying that the government of Niger has granted the US military the authority to arm its drones in Niger. US military officials had been seeking the authority to arm its drones for months prior to the ambush of a US Special Forces unit that left four soldiers dead.

Since that attack in October has goaded US officials to press the Niger government with a renewed sense of urgency to allow the arming of drones.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford told reporters that a remotely piloted drone aircraft arrived overhead within minutes of the soldiers’ request for support but defense officials told CNN that it was unarmed due to the previous prohibition on armed drones.
It is unclear what if any authority military commanders have to conduct drone strikes in Niger.
“The Government of Niger and the US stand firm in working together to prevent terrorist organizations from using the region as a safe haven. For operational security reasons, I will not comment on specific military authorities or permissions,” Maj. Audricia Harris said.
The New York Times was the first to report Niger’s granting of authority to arm drones.

There are currently around 800 US troops in the country of Niger, most are helping to build a new drone operational base in the town of Agadez. The current base for drone operations is located near the civilian airport in the capital of Niamey.

To read the entire article from CNN, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation, Week 1, Day 4

Continue to prep for the UBRR and focus on some speed work today with some shorter runs for time. Speed work will help with your endurance and explosion.

Work on the perfect form when doing your exercises. The cadre at Selection are meticulous at grading form, especially with pushups. The time to get it right is now. Then the graded test in the course will be a piece of cake. Remember, everyone gets graded the same.

UBRR Training:

5 x 1-mile run Go as quickly as you can with a minimum of 5-minute rest between runs. Record your average mile time.

5 x 30 seconds of Pushups.

5 x 30 seconds of Sit-ups

1 x 20 Knees-to-Elbow hanging from the pull-up bar, or until muscle failure

2 x 10 pull-ups or until muscle failure

Stretch well after completion

Some Basic Survival Skills Everyone Should Know

We live in a techno-centric age. Everything is at our fingertips. We have cell phones that can navigate our roads from point A-to-point B. Our phones also have GPS grid coordinates at the quick typing of an app, that can pinpoint your exact location. But what happens in the event of an emergency and you don’t have your cell phone, or it breaks or it just doesn’t get a signal out wherever you’re at.

And don’t say it can’t happen. It can, it does and all too frequently. So, unless you want to be a statistic, you should know at a minimum some basic survival skills if you are ever stuck out in the wilderness somewhere.

You don’t have to be a Green Beret or Navy SEAL and be a SERE School graduate but it certainly helps if you are comfortable out in the wilderness, far from home and have good outdoor survival skills.

So, if the unthinkable happens and you are just your average Joe, not all is lost here. You can survive, thrive even as long as you perfect a few basic outdoor skills and we’ll get to them in just a second, but first, if you ever find yourself in a survival situation, just remember the word Survival and that will help you plan your way to safety

S – Size up the situation

U – Undue Haste makes waste

R – Remember where you are

V – Vanquish fear and panic

I – Improvise

V – Value living

A – Act like the natives

L – Learn basic skills … simple no? Let’s move on.

We’re going to use the KISS Principle here, Keep it simple, stupid. And we’ll start with the first of the basic skills you should know how to do.

Remember “The Rule of Threes.” A person can survive for:
– 3 minutes without air
– 3 hours without a regulated body temperature – hypothermia (shelter)
– 3 days without water
– 3 weeks without food

With that in mind, it brings us to our very first and most important skill.

#1 Build a Survival Shelter: Are you alone or with another person or group? What kind of materials are at your disposal? Hypothermia can and will kill people quickly, long before they feel the effects of lack of food or water. So the first thing a person or group must do is to build a shelter, that will allow your body heat to keep you warm and dry during the night. Some basic consideration for building a shelter are:

Location – (just like real estate, location, location, location is very important) Don’t build a shelter in a low-lying area next to a river or stream. A flash flood can happen quickly, pick higher ground and preferably a spot that is protected from the wind.

Insulation – the ground can sap the warmth right from your body, ensure that bed that you lie on has four to six inches minimum of pine straw, leaves etc, that will insulate from the ground. Double or triple that for the sides of the shelter
Heating – is the shelter just body heated or is there a fire?
Personal or Group Shelter – if you’re in a small group, a group shelter although harder to construct, will keep everyone warmer, and don’t be shy, the closer you are to each other, the warmer you’ll stay.

The simplest design is a simple lean-to, building one isn’t particularly difficult. Just find a downed tree resting at an angle, or set a large branch securely against a standing tree. If you have cordage, you can secure it that way or use any vines in the area to lash it all together. Then stack smaller branches close together, weaving them together if possible. Then layer debris, like leaves, pine straw etc. until the walls are thick as well as wind and waterproof as you can make them.

#2 Starting a Fire: Having a fire is not only a tremendous tool for warming your body as well as your shelter but it can cook food, and boil water. Having a fire is also a big psychological boost for all involved. It provides a sense of security and safety.

A fire can also be used as a signaling device if an individual or group is being actively searched for in a rescue type of situation. A large smoky fire is easily visible from the air and can be seen from far away.

One should always carry field expedient fire starting devices but it is always a plus knowing the skills of starting a fire without matches, a lighter or flint. Use small tinder to start with and then add tiny sticks and twigs until you get a bed of coals going well enough to add some larger logs.

#3 Finding a Fresh Water Supply: If at possible, water should always be boiled before drinking. Depending upon your situation, that may not be possible. But finding a clean potable water supply is a must. If you’re in a winter survival situation, rain, snow or dew can be captured using a bandana or t-shirt and drank as it is more often than not in a purified state. Many vines will have water that can be wrung out as well as certain cacti.

#4 Finding Food: When it comes to a survival type of situation and food, the best rule of thumb is to think small. Unless you have a weapon of some kind, trying to trap or snare a large animal will waste more energy than it is worth. Become familiar with what edible plants are in your area. There are plenty of edible plant guides out there that will help you become more familiar with what it edible and what isn’t.

A couple of common plants that can help sustain you in most areas include:

Cattails – The “super Wal-Mart” of the swamp, almost every piece of the cattail can be eaten, the roots, shoots and the pollen heads are all edible.
Conifers – Most evergreen, cone-bearing trees, with the exception of the Yew have a soft, pulpy inner bark that is called the cambium. It is full of calories and starches and will sustain you
Oak trees – Acorns from oak trees can be eaten once the bitter tannic acids are removed. Native Americans used to put a basket full of acorns in a fast moving stream where the water would leach the tannic acid out in a day or two. The other method is to boil them. Place the acorns in a pot and cover them with water, once the water boils and turns the color of tea, dump the water out and repeat the process until the water no longer turns brown.

Now as a word to the wise, these are survival foods and the taste isn’t going to make one want to give up prime rib for a diet of cattail, cambium, and acorns. But it will get you thru a tough situation if the need arises.

These are just a few of the skills that one should master if you ever find yourself in a survival type of situation. But the weapon you have at your disposal is your brain. To quote Tom Hanks, “that’s the lump three feet above your ass.” Keeping a positive mental outlook on things, keeping your wits about you at all times is imperative.

And by all means, take a course on outdoor survival. There are a plethora of them in all parts of the country. And there is no shortage of very good ones in every area. Do your homework and check them out.

One (unsolicited by the way) course you should check out is run by former Special Forces officer Mykel Hawke. Many of you may remember Hawke from his television show that he and his wife had called “Man, Woman, Wild” on the Travel Channel. He runs a couple of different survival courses including a Couples Survival Course. So bring your significant other and take an outdoor survival course and learn some new skills while bonding with your spouse. Then they’ll have a greater appreciation of what you do… Stay safe, be prepared and don’t quit.

Photo: Wikipedia

Convicted War Criminal Dies After Drinking Poison in Court

In a shocking turn of events that played out on live television, Slobodan Praljak, drank poison in a courtroom and died later on Wednesday, after the convicted war criminal interrupted a courtroom hearing to declare his innocence according to Croatian state media.

Praliak, loudly proclaimed his innocence in front of the International Criminal Tribunal and stated, “Judges, Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal!” “I reject this verdict.”

The presiding judge asked him numerous times to stop and sit down, it was then that Praljak. 72, tilted his head back and downed a vial of liquid. He said, “I just drank poison.”

The hearing was suspended shortly afterward, as the other people in the room sought to make sense of the situation. “Please,” the presiding judge asked, “the curtains.”
Praljak soon fell ill and was quickly ushered from the courtroom by paramedics, though their efforts could not save his life.
“The emergency services took Praljak to a nearby hospital, where he died,” tribunal spokesperson Nenad Golcevski told media, also noting that Dutch police have opened an independent investigation into the incident.
Praljak was one of six men sentenced to prison in 2013 for “crimes against humanity, violations of the laws or customs of war, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions,” the tribunal notes.
“The Trial Chamber concluded that, from January 1993, all six accused were participants in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at creating a Croatian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina that would facilitate the reunification of the Croatian people, through ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population,” The Hague-based organization explains.

The tribunal has held various trials for war crimes from the brutal civil war that took place in the former Yugoslavia. It has indicted 161 former soldiers for war crimes and has convicted 91.

To read the entire article from National Public Radio click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

US Denies Special Operations Soldiers Killed Somali Citizens in August

AFRICOM, the United States’ command in Africa, has disputed claims that Special Operations soldiers killed any civilian during a raid conducted in August. The PAO office for the command released a statement on Wednesday, which was the first public statement concerning the allegations that first surfaced in the Daily Beast.

AFRICOM’s two-paragraph statement referred to a joint raid by U.S. and Somali troops on the village of Bariire and claimed that those killed were enemy combatants from the al Shabab terror network which is affiliated with al-Qaeda. However, eyewitnesses told the press that there were 10 civilians were killed.

The survivors and relatives of the dead said they wanted blood money and an apology.
“After a thorough assessment of the Somali National Army-led operation near Bariire, Somalia, on Aug. 25, 2017, and the associated allegations of civilian casualties, U.S. Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAF) has concluded that the only casualties were those of armed enemy combatants,” the two paragraph statement read.
“Before conducting operations with partner forces, SOCAF conducts detailed planning and coordination to reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties and to ensure compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict. U.S. Africa Command and the Department of Defense take allegations of civilian casualties very seriously.”
Despite promising a public investigation, the embattled Somali government has made no public statement on the raid, and some Somali security officials said privately that it would not, for fear of alienating the powerful clan whose members were killed.

The US has been stepping up its presence in Somalia and Africa as a whole. A Navy SEAL was killed in Somalia earlier this year, the first US combat death in the country since the “Black Hawk Down” battle in Mogadishu in October 1993.

To read the entire article from The Voice of America click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 1 Day 3

We’re going to do a smoker this morning of pushups, sit-ups, and crunches that you can either do at the gym or on the ground and then head back out on the rucking trails. Let’s pump these out as quickly as possible, understanding that there isn’t a time limit but to build up your endurance.

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

100 pushups (no time limit)

100 sit-ups (no time limit)

100 crunches

Rucksack march: Go as hard and as fast as you can for 1 hour. Do this without running. See what your distance is and make a notation. This will give you a goal to achieve in later training sessions.

Stretch well after completion

November 29, 1947, the U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine is Adopted

The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which would end the British mandate in the area and proposed a partition of Palestine. The UN General Assembly adopted the plan as Resolution 181.

This convoluted plan recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States and a Special International Regime for the city of Jerusalem. With bizarre boundaries and the withdrawal of the British Mandate no later than August 1, 1948, the progressive removal of British armed forces, the plan never had a chance of succeeding.

The two new states, one Jewish and one Arab would come into existence two months after the withdrawal but no later than October 1, 1948. The UN had hoped to address the conflicting claims of Palestinian and Jewish nationalism and called for an Economic Union between the two states, as well as the protection of religious and minority rights.

The Jewish Agency for Palestine immediately accepted the UN’s plan despite many misgivings. However Arab leaders rejected it. Their argument was that the UN was violating its own principles of the right of self-determination in the UN Charter.

The UN plan, which never had any hope of succeeding was never implemented because as soon as the resolution was adopted, civil war broke out between the Jews and Arabs with the British squarely in the middle.

The Palestinian Mandate: The British had broken up the Ottoman Turk Empire at the end of World War I, and in 1923 drafted the Balfour Declaration which called for a small Jewish homeland

In 1937, after a six-month-long Arab general strike and armed insurrection, the British established the Peel Commission. The Commission recommended breaking up the land into an Arab state linked to Transjordan; a small Jewish state; and a mandatory zone. The Jewish faction under David Ben Gurion accepted the plan, the Arabs once again roundly rejected it stating that the divided land share was unfair to the Jews getting the best agricultural land.

The British followed with the Woodhead Commission which rejected and provided two possible alternatives for the Arabs and Jews to consider. Nothing was working and the two sides were drifting farther apart. In 1938 the British government issued a policy statement declaring that “the political, administrative and financial difficulties involved in the proposal to create independent Arab and Jewish States inside Palestine are so great that this solution of the problem is impracticable”.

World War II: With the war with Germany and the Axis looming, the British looked to appease the Arabs as they would need their support in the war’s southern reaches in the oil-rich Middle East and for control of the Mediterranean. The MacDonald White Paper of 1939 stated that it is “not part of [the British government’s] policy that Palestine should become a Jewish State”, sought to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine and restricted Arab land sales to Jews. This ran against the Mandate according to the League of Nations. With the pogroms against the Jews in Europe rising, many were seeking to move to Palestine but the British were trying to stem immigration and much of it ended up being illegal.

The Jews didn’t trust the Arab leaders who were against any kind of Jewish homeland at all. And then there was the Grand Mufti.

The Grand Mufti of Palestine visited Hitler in 1941 and was seeking German support for a general Arab uprising. However, he didn’t stop there, he asked Hitler and Mussolini to declare the illegality of the Jewish home in Palestine. He also asked, “they accord to Palestine and to other Arab countries the right to solve the problem of the Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries, in accordance with the interest of the Arabs and, by the same method, that the question is now being settled in the Axis countries.”

That sounded ominously to the Jews as the Mufti wanting to eradicate the Jews from the land forever. After the war and the awful details of the Holocaust surfaced, President Truman asked the British to allow 100,000 Jewish emigres to travel to Palestine.

In May 1947, the UN formed a special body, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). The committee proposed breaking Palestine into three parts: an Arab State, a Jewish State and the City of Jerusalem, linked by extraterritorial crossroads. From Wikipedia UNSCOP:

The proposed Arab State would include the central and part of western Galilee, with the town of Acre, the hill country of Samaria and Judea, an enclave at Jaffa, and the southern coast stretching from north of Isdud (now Ashdod) and encompassing what is now the Gaza Strip, with a section of desert along the Egyptian border. The proposed Jewish State would include the fertile Eastern Galilee, the Coastal Plain, stretching from Haifa to Rehovot and most of the Negev desert,[49] including the southern outpost of Umm Rashrash (now Eilat). The Jerusalem Corpus Separatum included Bethlehem and the surrounding areas.

Post War Partition and War: The Partition Plan after being voted on by the UN caused massive outbreaks of violence between Palestinian Jews and Arabs known as the 1947-1948 Civil War. The British, tired of the issues there, washed their hands of the area and left in May of 1948. With the British army gone, it created a massive power vacuum and chaos ensued.

On that night, May 14, 1948, the Jewish People’s Council met and declared “the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel”

The next day on May 15, the tiny nation, less than 24 hours old, was attacked by a coalition of the combined forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, together with expeditionary forces from Iraq.

The Israelis persevered against great odds and now controlled a much larger swath of territory than was previously allowed by the partition. The remainder of Palestine was annexed by Transjordan and the Palestinians were never given their homeland by the other Arab neighbors.

And peace remains a tricky issue in the area ever since.

Photos courtesy: Wikipedia

Argentina’s Military of Defense Releases Timeline of Missing Submarine

The Ministry of Defense of Argentina released a more detailed timeline for their missing submarine on Tuesday. The military said that the captain of the vessel reported that water had entered thru the ship’s snorkel causing a battery to short-circuit before an explosion-like anomaly was detected underwater 10 hours later near the ship’s last known location.

Ships and aircraft from several countries including the US are still are searching the South Atlantic for the ARA San Juan and its 44 crew members, which disappeared November 15 a few hundred kilometers off Argentina’s coast. It was US seismic sensors that reported an explosion-like anomaly in the area near the sub’s location.

November 15, 12:30 a.m.: The sub’s captain calls his land-based commander by satellite phone, saying that seawater has entered the vessel’s “snorkel,” a tube that reaches the surface to refresh the vessel’s air and recharge the batteries. He says the water caused a short-circuit in the battery system in the vessel’s bow and the beginnings of a fire, or smoke. The smoke was put out and the short-circuited system was isolated.

The captain indicates that the battery- and diesel-powered sub would continue traveling with its stern batteries.
6 a.m.: The captain types the same message and relays it to base electronically, as is protocol following a phone conversation.
7:30 a.m.: The captain calls base again, this time to say that the vessel is traveling, submerged, as planned, without any personnel problems.
10:31 a.m.: A sound consistent with an explosion is detected in the ocean, near the sub’s last known location.

The submarine would have enough air to stay submerged for 7-10 days if it had remained intact after an initial problem. Had the sub surfaced to recharge batteries, it would have bought the crew more time.

To read the entire article from CNN click here:

Photo courtesy Argentina Ministry of Defense

Carolina Panthers Visit Ft. Bragg’s Special Warfare Center

Members of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers got a first-hand look at some of the training that Army Special Operations Forces go thru and got to experience some of it on a Tuesday visit to Ft. Bragg.

The Panthers players got to try a virtual reality parachute jump trainer, fire M-4 weapons during at a battlefield simulator and of course meet with many of the soldiers and their families. For Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, the trip arranged by the USO was a homecoming of sorts.

Richardson grew up and played high school football in Fayetteville before going to college and playing in the NFL. He’s currently the only owner who has played in the league.

“I am humbled by their dedication to our country and deeply appreciate them allowing us to spend time with them,” he said.
But after visiting with troops and their families as part of their visit to the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, the players found themselves in familiar territory, with good reason.
The THOR3 facility at the Special Warfare Center and School — like many others across the Army special operations community – is based on lessons learned from professional sports teams like the Panthers.
The facility – part of the special operations Tactical Human Optimization Rapid Rehabilitation and Reconditioning program – is part of Army special operations’ efforts to treat soldiers more like professional athletes in the hopes of reducing injuries and the physical wear and tear of years of Army service.
Much like any professional sports team, the soldiers of the Special Warfare Center and School – where the Army trains its Special Forces, civil affairs and psychological operations troops – now have dieticians, physical therapists, sports psychologists and strength and conditioning coaches as part of their supporting team, according to Master Sgt. Mike Taylor, the director of human dynamics and performance.

The trip was a learning experience for both sides, the players got to experience a little of what it was like to be a Special Operations soldier and raved about the training and equipment. One player, linebacker David Mayo has two brothers in the Army and his grandfather was an Army pilot in World War II, so the visit was particularly meaningful.

But the soldiers are learning from the players as well. The Special Warfare Center’s Thor3 is taking the lessons learned from the nation’s sports teams to train bigger, better-conditioned soldiers who are less likely to suffer injuries.

To read the entire article from The Fayetteville Observer, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 1, Day 2

Back to the gym today, with our Wednesday work out and then practice our shuttle run to build up some explosion and lateral quickness. Try to limit the time between sets to 30 seconds or less

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, behind the neck (go as heavy as possible)

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, front

3 x 10 Barbell Deadlift

3 x 10 Dumbbell Side Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Front Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Arnold Shoulder Press

3 x 8 Shoulder Shrugs

4 x 25-meter Shuttle Run (x3)

Stretch well after completion