The U.S. mission in Afghanistan centers around swaying locals to its side. And there¡¯s no better persuasion tool than an invisible pain ray that makes people feel like they¡¯re on fire.
OK, OK. Maybe that isn¡¯t precisely the logic being employed by those segments of the American military who would like to deploy the Active Denial System to Afghanistan. I¡¯m sure they¡¯re telling themselves that the generally non-lethal microwave weapon is a better, safer crowd control alternative than an M-16. But those ray-gun advocates better think long and hard about the Taliban¡¯s propaganda bonanza when news leaks of the Americans zapping Afghans until they feel roasted alive.
Because, apparently, the Active Denial System is ¡°in Afghanistan for testing.¡±
An Air Force military officer and a civilian employee at the Air Force Research Laboratory are just two of the people telling Danger Room co-founder Sharon Weinberger that the vehicle-mounted ¡°block 2¡å version of the pain ray is in the warzone, but hasn¡¯t been used in combat.
[Update: "We are currently not testing the Active Denial System in Afghanistan," Kelley Hughes, spokesperson for the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, tells Danger Room.
So I ask her: Has it been tested previously? She hems and haws. "I'm not gonna get into operational," Hughes answers.
Hughes also disputes the assertion that Active Denial creates a burning feeling. "It's an intolerable heating sensation," she says. "Like opening up an oven door."]
For years, the military insisted that the Active Denial System ¡ª known as the ¡°Holy Grail¡± of crowd control ¡ª was oh-so-close to battlefield deployment. But a host of technical issues hampered the ray gun: everything from overheating to poor performance in the rain. Safety concerns lingered; a test subject had to be airlifted to a burn center after being zapped by the weapon. (He eventually made a full recovery.) And then there were concerns about ¡°the atmospherics¡± ¡ª how the locals might react ¡ª when they learned that the United States had turned a people-roaster on ¡®em. ¡°Not politically tenable,¡± the Defense Science Board concluded.
I pinged Gen. Stanley McChrystal¡¯s staff about the use of Active Denial in Afghanistan. I¡¯ll let you know if I hear anything back. But a few months ago, a source told me that a representative from the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate was in Afghanistan. Did that mean Active Denial was about to be put into action? Nope, the source said. ¡°She¡¯s just out getting some atmospherics on the use of non-lethals.¡±
[Iran Press TV Latest] A new wave of clashes between government troops and al-Shabab fighters in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, has claimed the lives of 20 people.
Clashes broke out at dawn when the heavily-armed fighters attacked army bases in Hosh neighborhood in the government-controlled southern district of Medina.
"I have seen the 10 dead bodies of youngsters with bullet wounds at Hosh intersection. I have also seen the government side carrying their dead soldiers," an eyewitness told Press TV.
The clashes lasted for three hours but residents reported that sporadic gunfire could be heard even after the fighting had stopped.
Al-Shabab fighters have claimed responsibility of the early Friday clashes, and have said that the fighting is aimed at increasing their power in the capital.
The government troops have denied the seizure of any territories by the fighters.
The fighting over the past years in Somalia has killed at least 21,000 people and forced another 1.5 million to flee their homes since the eruption of the insurgency in 2007.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
...Or, as they call it in Mogadishu, Friday.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/19/2010 5:11 Comments ||
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[Maghrebia] Algerian security officers dismantled a terror-support cell in Tissemsilet, Echorouk reported on Thursday (June 17th). Six suspects, aged between 20 and 60, were arrested for providing logistical support to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb cells operating in Medea, Tissemsilet and Ain Defla. This was reportedly the second support network dismantled in Tissemsilet within the last three months.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
ION TOPIX > AL QAEDA CALLS FOR YEMENI TRIBAL REVOLT, + EGYPT: GAZA IS STILL ISRAEL'S PROBLEM; + EGYPT: IS THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE TO THE CURRENT LEADERSHIP?
IMO Read, MUBARAK Dynasty + EGYPTIAN SECULARISM.
* SAME > HORN OF AFRICA IS WORLD'S MOST UNSTABLE REGION.
[Maghrebia] Suspects in the deadly 2007 twin bombings of the UN Algiers office and constitutional court go on trial next week in the Algerian capital, El Watan reported on Friday (June 18th). The 13 defendants include al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leader Abdelmalek Droukdel. The charges include terrorist group membership, mass murder by use of explosives and damage to state security and territorial integrity.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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Heavily armed men believed to be al-Qaida militants stormed the intelligence headquarters in Yemen's port city of Aden on Saturday, security officials said, while an eyewitness reported the gunmen later escaped with several freed prisoners. I guess the folks at the intel HQ never saw it coming ...
Posted by: ed ||
06/19/2010 08:23 ||
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#1
Security in yemen, sorta like ice cream in Hell...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/19/2010 14:39 Comments ||
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Babelfish with a hat tip to Nota Roja
Elements of the Mexican Army seized more than $1 million in American cash, six vehicles, three pistols and a quantity of drugs in a series of raids at three residences in Culican, Sinaloa this week, according to Mexican news reports.
Presumed elements of the Mexican 9th Military Zone conducted the drug raids.
The first raid at a residence on calle Salvador Dalà in the Barcelona district yielded $28,500 in American cash, 20 kilograms of cocaine, eight fine watches, six jewels, and a 9mm pistol.
Also seized were two Chevrolet sedans, a Ford Mustang, and a Dodge Ram pickup truck.
A subsequent raid at another nearby safe house yielded $1.028 million American dollars and $80 in counterfeit American bills. Also seized were two Super .38 pistols, a Chevrolet pickup truck and a Chevrolet sedan, both outfitted with false spaces for smuggling.
A third safe house was raided around the corner on calle Batllo yielded 10 kilograms of marijuana and 145 grams of amphetamine pills.
#4
Muchas gracias for origina site info. The pictures were dramatic in the usual Mexican press style. The pistols seized appear to be gold plated with pearl or ivory handles - asombroso! Rosary beads and crucifixes propably to honor "Santa Muerte"...
Babelfish with a hat tip to Nota Roja
Elements of the Mexican Army and Navy report six dead criminals and one dead solder in the Mexican state of Nayarit today, say Mexican news reports.
Reports are Mexican defense units began to move to the area earlier in the week around the Los Sabinos farm on the Bellavista and Francisco I. Madero highway because during the week seven people were executed. Residents in the area also reported observing a convoy of luxury vehicles with armed suspects aboard in the area.
Soldiers of the 13th Military Zone of Tepic and sailors from the 6th Naval Zone of San Blas conducted sweeps searching for narcotics criminals through cane plantations and ranches earlier in the week.
The actual fighting began at about 0600 hrs Friday near Francisco I. Madero, about 13 kilometers from Tepic. A subsequent engagement at a safe house near the ranch Las Lombrices presumably kept by the armed suspects began around 1348 hrs following a raid on the residence. One suspected gunman died in this phase of the operation.
More fightfights erupted shortly after following further sweeps in the area by military forces and yielded at least one dead gunman.
The operation in the area concluded at about 1448 hrs when forces began to withdraw from the area. Casualty reports place the toll at at six dead and six wounded suspects, and one dead and six wounded military personnel.
Mexican military forces seized six vehicles, 15 rifles and two hand grenades in the operation
#1
Cancun police find 12 decomposing inside caverns
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) - Police in Cancun found 12 decomposing bodies in four caverns and were searching for more cadavers in violence blamed on drug gangs in the popular resort city, officials said Friday.
Earlier this month, police discovered six other bodies, three of them cut open and their hearts removed, in a similar cavern near the Mexican resort. Three of the bodies had the letter "Z'' carved on their abdomens - a possible reference to the Zeta drug gang.
#5
Seriously, "Z" has one and only one meaning in the narco business...
Must be something in the tropics.
Seriously, I haven't been paying much attention to Mexico until we started paying attention this spring, but of all the stories I have read about Los Zetas, I have never read where they have mutilated their victims, at least not in Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, theit turf.
Not sayin' it ain't them, and I'm not sayin' I'd want to have morning backrubs, etc, with them. I just haven't read about mutilations directly attributable to Los Zetas.
Kyrgyztan has threatened to close down a strategic US airbase if Britain refuses to hand over the son of the country's ousted president. Maxim Bakiyev, who was arrested at Farnborough airport on Sunday, has an arrest warrant against him from Interpol, on charges of corruption and misusing state funds.
He has also been accused by the Kyrgyz interim government of provoking this week's outburst of brutal ethnic conflict in southern Kyrgyzstan.
"England never gives up people who arrive on its territory. But since England and the US fight terrorism, and the arrangement with the airbase is one of the elements of that fight, then they must give over Maxim Bakiyev," said Azimbek Beknazarov, deputy leader of the provisional government in an interview with the Guardian newspaper.
Turkish warplanes launched air raids at suspected Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq Saturday after a rebel attack on a military outpost in Turkey touched off clashes in which eight soldiers and 12 rebel fighters died, Turkey's military said.
Posted by: ed ||
06/19/2010 08:20 ||
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#1
And yet we still see them whining about "thugs" killed in a dust-up with Israel.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Turkey's military said Friday it killed as many as 120 Kurdish rebels in an air raid on rebel hideouts in northern Iraq last month and a daylong incursion by elite commandos into Iraq this week.
Kurdish rebels have dramatically stepped up attacks in Turkey in recent months in an escalation that poses a dire threat to a remarkable attempt at ending one of the world's longest guerrilla wars. The Turkish military responded to the rebels by sending its warplanes across the Iraqi border to bomb Kurdish rebel positions after acquiring intelligence, apparently from the United States and recently purchased drones from Israel.
The rebels have long used northern Iraq as a springboard for hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets in a campaign for autonomy in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast. Several past Turkish air raids and incursions have failed to stop rebel infiltration through the mountainous border.
Maj. Gen. Fahri Kir, the head of the military's internal security operations, said another 30 Kurdish rebels were killed inside Turkey since March in anti-rebel operations. He said the Turkish losses were 43 in the same period. It was not possible to independently verify the figures, which the military says are based on intelligence reports, including interception of radio communication between the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK.
"We anticipate (PKK attacks) to continue incrementally," Kir told a news conference at the military headquarters.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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Negotiations are under way for the first Guantánamo war court conviction of the Obama administration, according to sources, a deal that would eventually send Osama bin Laden's one-time cook home to Sudan. At a time when the White House is stymied in its Guantánamo closure efforts, a guilty plea could permit the Pentagon to downsize its detainee population again. It would also give the Pentagon a terror trial victory in the process President Barack Obama once derided and then trashed reformed.
The case involves a little-known captive, Ibrahim al Qosi, who has been a war prisoner at Guantánamo since 2002 -- and has faced charges since the Bush administration inaugurated the controversial military commissions in 2004. Qosi, 49, is accused of conspiracy and providing material support for terror for allegedly serving on a Taliban mortar crew and as a sometime bin Laden bodyguard. A conviction could carry life in prison, which a deal would avert. He is often described as the al Qaeda founder's cook because U.S. military documents allege he worked in the kitchen of Bin Laden's ``Star of Jihad'' compound in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Two sources with knowledge of the negotiations, but not directly involved in them, confirmed the goal was to present a deal at Guantánamo July 6, when a Qosi hearing is scheduled, three days after his 50th birthday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by the Qosi prosecution or defense teams to talk about the negotiations and refused to say how much longer Qosi might have to serve before going home.
On Thursday, the Dubai-based, Saudi-owned Arabic satellite news network Al Arabiya reported that U.S. officials had already sealed a deal trading Qosi's guilty plea for a lesser sentence. It was not quantified, and Qosi's defense attorneys, Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier and civilian Paul Reichler refused to discuss the report.
At the Pentagon on Friday, war court spokesman Joe DellaVedova said the office would ``not comment on the existence or status of pretrial negotiations in any military commissions case.'' Disclosure would violate both the American Bar Association ethics guidelines and the commissions' rule book, he added.
Qosi is a bookkeeper by training. Prosecutors earlier alleged he handled the al Qaeda payroll before 1996 in his native Sudan, but his judge, Air Force Lt. Col. Nancy Paul, refused in December to expand the scope of his trial beyond al Qaeda's arrival in Afghanistan in 1996, a setback for the prosecution.
Then twice this year, a Sudanese lawyer, Ahmed Elmufti, traveled from Khartoum to the U.S. Navy base to meet Qosi. Elmufti last went in May, soon after Defense Secretary Robert Gates named retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald as the so-called ``convening authority for military commissions.'' The powerful job decides which Guantánamo captives cases can be prosecuted, and can orchestrate plea deals and dismissals.
As a foreigner, Elmufti does not have a security clearance and so only consults with his client in earshot of guards and other U.S. military personnel. American lawyers with security clearances are entitled to attorney-client confidentiality.
Signs of a looming deal in the Qosi case emerged after the Pentagon abruptly canceled plans to airlift 14 journalists to Guantánamo on Monday -- all to watch a Qosi hearing for their first time. Defense attorneys sought the delay, said a Pentagon spokeswoman, Army Maj. Tanya Bradsher, and the judge and prosecutors agreed. July 6 would be the first chance to present any deal to Paul.
Were a Qosi deal to be sealed in July, a plea could be bifurcated from the sentencing hearing. If a deal is struck, the sentencing could take place in mid-August around the time of jury selection in the trial of Canadian captive Omar Khadr.
A suspected U.S. missile strike killed 13 people Saturday in a Pakistani tribal region where several militant outfits plot attacks on Western troops across the border in Afghanistan, officials said.
Posted by: ed ||
06/19/2010 08:16 ||
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[Dawn] India on Friday handed over to Pakistan a new dossier of evidence related to the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, ahead of talks next week between top foreign ministry officials.
India's foreign ministry separately announced a meeting next Thursday between Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir as the two nations look to build on a recent thaw in relations.
Another dossier of evidence related to the attacks known as "26/11" in India, which saw 166 people killed, was handed over on Friday, a Pakistan embassy source in New Delhi told AFP, asking not to be named.
"They have given us some more documentation this afternoon and we have sent it to Pakistan," the source said.
"This is additional information about 26/11 and it is huge in volume."
India has already handed over several dossiers of evidence linking the attacks to Pakistani militants, but Islamabad says more is needed to convict the alleged masterminds.
In Islamabad, foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit confirmed the new dossier but said it was a "response to the dossier we had given to India".
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
gullibly offering advice to isi on how to do the job properly next time
Bodies of 6 Frontier Corps (FC) personnel were retrieved from Mohmand Agency on Friday by a tribal jirga, as search for the remaining 34 missing paramilitary soldiers continues.
Over 65 soldiers went missing after their post in Shonkarai area of Mohmand tribal region was attacked on Monday by more than 200 Afghan Taliban.
On Friday, the six bodies were recovered after the tribal elders visited and held talks with the Taliban militants based in Mohmand Agency, a tribal elder told Daily Times by phone from Ghalanai, headquarters of Mohmand.
"They (Taliban commanders) were reluctant at first. However, after some arguments, they allowed us to take the bodies of 6 soldiers," the tribal elder said.
The bodies have now been sent to their respective areas for burial, military sources said.
"We are making efforts to find the remaining 34 soldiers," the sources said. However, it is not yet clear whether the militants are holding these soldiers as hostages.
Meanwhile, the 14 soldiers who were handed over to the Pakistan Consulate in Jalalabad on Thursday by Afghan officials have returned to Peshawar where they are being debriefed.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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Ay-Pee . . .
An al-Qaida-linked insurgent shot and killed his own father as he slept in his bed Friday for refusing to quit his job as an Iraqi interpreter for the U.S. military, police said, a rare deadly attack on a close family member over allegations of collaborating with the enemy. Looks like several family members were involved in this and got caught. It is at least partly blamed on the backfill of Al Qaeda that followed pullback by US troops, which made some folks switch sides. Again.
BAGHDAD (AP) - An al-Qaida-linked insurgent shot and killed his own father as he slept in his bed Friday for refusing to quit his job as an Iraqi interpreter for the U.S. military, police said, a rare deadly attack on a close family member over allegations of collaborating with the enemy. Citing confessions, police said the son whom they arrested,
Abdul-Halim Hameed, 30, was a former member of al-Qaida in Iraq who quit the terror network in mid-2007 under pressure from U.S.-Iraqi security operations that have led to a sharp drop in violence in the area.
Col. Hazim Ali, a senior security official in Samarra, said Hameed, his 19-year-old cousin and 24-year-old brother remained committed to extremist causes.
With U.S. troops withdrawing from the country, Ansar al-Sunnah, an insurgent group with ties to al-Qaida, recently lured the men into their ranks with offers of hard cash, Ali said.
Reliable Iraqi security sources revealed Thursday details of a new elaborate plot to assassinate the head of the Iraqiya List and former head of the Iraqi government Iyad Allawi. Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the plot that was "ready to be implemented" became known to "pro-Allawi security, military, and government apparatus."
According to sources the "plot was going to begin with preventing any civilian aircraft carrying Allawi from reaching or landing in the Al Muthanna Air Base near the Baghdad International Airport and forcing him (Allawi) to use the normal route, i.e. Baghdad International."
The sources added that the plot was going to be implemented "on his first flight journey whether inside or outside of Iraq, since the conspirators would have been ready to implement the assassination plot at the Baghdad International Airport by using a sniper armed with a silencer rifle and would be killed after carrying out the operation to ensure it would not be revealed. The sources added that "top-level and important government parties are embroiled in the operation of plotting the assassination of Iyad Allawi."
The sources added, "Allawi's security and protection team received official instructions the night before last that the Al Muthanna Air Base is not to be used by civilian planes knowing that Allawi used and still uses this airport the most for security-related reasons."
Asharq Al-Awsat recently published a report on an elaborate plot for the assassination of the head of the Iraqiya List before the formation of the Iraqi government based on security information and warnings from Iraqi, Arab and US intelligence bodies.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Two car bombs targeting a provincial councillor and a police officer north of Baghdad on Friday killed five people and wounded 79, many of them women or children, police said.
The five dead came in a bombing in the town of Tuz Khurmatu and targeted the home of Niazar Nomaroglu, a Shiite Turkmen councillor in mainly Sunni Arab Salaheddin province, police Colonel Hussein al-Bayati said.
Women and children were among the 47 people wounded in the 3:45 pm (1245 GMT) bombing, which severely damaged several surrounding houses as well as Nomaroglu's home, Bayati said.
It was unclear whether the councillor was among the casualties.
Salaheddin province has its headquarters in heavily Sunni Arab Tikrit, hometown of now executed dictator Saddam Hussein, but the province also has Kurdish and Shiite Turkmen minorities, particularly on its eastern margins.
Earlier, a car bomb targeting the home of police Captain Mustafa al-Tamimi in Baquba wounded 32 people, 20 of them women or children, a spokesman for the city's operations command said.
"His house was completely destroyed," the spokesman said.
"Three of his children, his wife and two brothers were among the wounded.
The rest included nine women and seven children." The police officer himself escaped injury as he was at the mosque attending the main weekly Muslim prayers.
Baquba is the capital of ethnically and confessionally divided Diyala province, which has become one of the bastions of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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ANBAR / Aswat al-Iraq: Unidentified gunmen killed five soldiers in cold blood and wounded another in an attack on their patrol in western al-Anbar on Friday, an Iraqi police source said.
Gunmen in two vehicles ambushed an Iraqi army patrol in the area of al-Tis'een, al-Qa'em district, western Anbar, and executed five soldiers and injured a sixth after setting two Hummer vehicles ablaze,' the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
Security forces cordoned off the area in a bid to close in on the gunmen, who are expected to be arrested within the next few hours,' he said.
The source did not give further details.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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[Straits Times] FIVE communist guerrillas were killed and six policemen were wounded in an extended gunbattle in the southern Philippines on Friday, a police spokesman said.
About 50 fighters from the New People's Army (NPA) attempted to overrun a small police outpost in the restive island of Mindanao but the police were able to drive them off, said Superintendent Querubin Manalang.
Police reinforcements arrived to pursue the fleeing rebels, causing the fighting to spread in the isolated town of Cateel, he said. At least five dead insurgents were seen being dragged away by their comrades while six wounded policemen had to be airlifted to hospital, said Mr Manalang.
Fighting with the NPA has stepped up ahead of a deadline imposed by outgoing President Gloria Arroyo for government forces to crush the rebellion by the time she steps down on June 30.
At least 15 government soldiers were killed in intensified NPA attacks last month after the May 10 national elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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[Straits Times] TEMPLES in Batu Caves and Penang are stepping up security following the threat to blow up certain places of worship.
R. Nadarajah, chairman of the Sri Subramaniar Swamy Devas-thanam temple in Batu Caves said the 24-member temple committee will hold an emergency meeting soon to discuss additional security for the temple, a major tourist site in Malaysia.
'I was shocked after reading about the threat. I knew it was Batu Caves after reading it,' he said, adding that he would ask for more police presence near the temple grounds.
'We will also install CCTVs within the perimeters of the temple and have more security guards to carry out patrols,' he said, adding that the assistance of Rela would also be sought.
The temple, also known as Batu Caves Temple in Malaysia, is a prominent religious site for Hindus across the world. Nadarajah said they might even consider screening the people to prevent any untoward incident.
In George Town, the body managing the Kek Lok Si Temple urged police to set up a police beat base at the temple and also at the entrances to other famous places of worship in the state for safety.
Managing trustee of the Nattukotai Chettiar Temple Trustees Datuk N. Ramanathan said they would tighten security at the four temples under their purview. The temples include the Kovil Veedu in Penang Street and the Nattukotai Chettiar Temple in Waterfall Road.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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Russia says it is determined to maintain solid defense ties with Iran, despite its decision to cancel the delivery of the S-300 missile system to the Islamic Republic.
Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrey Denisov said Thursday that the country will continue to uphold its defense cooperation with Iran, but has no choice but to freeze the delivery of the S-300 air-defense missiles system to Iran "as it runs counter to the new round of UN Security Council sanctions on the country."
He was referring to the UNSC session on June 9, in which 12 member states voted in favor of a US-drafted resolution to impose tougher sanctions against Iran.
"Moscow believes that article 1929 of the sanctions resolution clearly forbids the sale of the S-300 system to Iran," Ria Novosti quoted Denisov as saying.
Under a contract signed in 2005, Russia was required to provide Iran with at least five S-300 air-defense systems, but the Kremlin has since oscillated between delivering the systems to Tehran and Washington's demands for the deal to be scrapped altogether.
The truck-mounted S-300PMU1, codenamed the SA-20 by NATO, can detect and shoot down any aircraft within a 120 km (75 miles) range.
If delivered, military experts believe, the SA-20 would make Iranian nuclear sites "invincible" in the face of an attack, notably aerial saturation bombings of the sort that could be carried out by Israel.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/19/2010 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The U.S. mission in Afghanistan centers around swaying locals to its side. And there¡¯s no better persuasion tool than an invisible pain ray that makes people feel like they¡¯re on fire.
