Tag: AFGHANISTAN

The Taliban has begun sending gruesome "night letters" -- violent videos meant to intimidate and control Afghans -- en masse via SMS. Historically written threats posted on buildings, night letters have long been a successful means of coercion by the Taliban. The video form has cropped up in the last couple of years on Facebook and YouTube, and tends toward the extreme, such as interviews of ...

A high-tech form of miniaturized radar capable of detecting incoming fire will be added to some soldiers' arsenals starting later this month. The Army just announced plans to ship 13,000 of the card-deck-sized Individual Gunshot Detectors to troops in Afghanistan. Four sensors detect soundwaves emitted by distant gunfire, while a monitor transmits information on its origins to the soldier. ...

British scientists are developing an active camouflage system for tanks that uses electronic ink to project images of the surrounding terrain onto the armored vehicle's shell. According to The Telegraph, electronic sensors would be placed on the tank's exterior. These sensors scan the environment, and use the e-ink to project colors, lines and shapes onto the tank's hull -- turning the vehicle ...

If you're a spectacularly average guy looking for love on Facebook, you could spend some time meticulously crafting your profile with Photoshopped self-shots, or quirky interests, in an attempt to make yourself seem more handsome and/or interesting than you really are. Or, if you have absolutely no soul whatsoever, you could just pretend that you're a dead soldier, and use someone else's heroism ...

When the newest version of 'Medal of Honor' hits living rooms on October 12th, users will still be able to spend hours of their lives shooting at each other in a hostile, virtual rendering of Afghanistan. One thing they won't be able to do, though, is play for the Taliban, as producer Electronic Arts, has now decided to pull the highly controversial option from the game's multi-player feature. ...

In an effort to exert greater control over militant groups in Afghanistan, several governmental ministries, in conjunction with NATO forces, are now hoping to issue biometric ID cards to over 1.65 million Afghan citizens by May. Local and foreign forces have already begun compiling biometric files on policemen, criminals, insurgents and normal citizens, and are currently collecting information ...

Later this year, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan will have a new method for detonating improvised explosive devices (IEDs). According to The Daily Mail, troops will expand their arsenals with a device called The Stingray, which uses H20 and a small amount of munition to create a 'blade' of water capable of penetrating steel. The Stingray, small enough to be carried by robots, can be placed far away ...

During the five months that he was held captive by Islamic militants in Afghanistan, Japanese journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka never thought he'd ever see his friends or family again. Now, however, he's finally back home -- thanks, in part, to Twitter. As the AP reports, Tsuneoka recently seized a golden opportunity to communicate with the outside world, when one of his captors asked him how to use ...

Well, it looks like storm clouds are brewing over the Wikileaks horizon once again. Just a few days after leaking more than 77,000 classified military documents about Afghanistan, the mysterious whistle-blowing site has now posted a far larger, encrypted file, entitled 'Insurance.' Weighing in at 1.4 gigabytes, the file is about 20 times larger than the pile of military documents leaked earlier, ...

With the release of its Afghan War Diary, Wikileaks has just perpetrated what many are calling one of the largest leaks in military history. Comprising nearly 92,000 classified reports from Afghanistan, the Diary sheds new light on the challenges that the U.S. and coalition forces face on the ground, exposing the conflict as more dire than most may have imagined. The documents reveal, among other ...

Just last month, the Pentagon confirmed that its 'pain ray' weapon had been sent to Afghanistan. However, nobody would say whether or not the non-lethal device, also known as the Active Denial System, had been tested or deployed. Now, according to BBC News, Raytheon's 'pain ray,' which uses a focused invisible beam to generate an intolerable burning sensation, is being carried by U.S. troops in ...

Last week, a nationwide be-on-the-lookout (BOLO) alert was sent to law enforcement agencies across the country after 17 soldiers in the Afghan military went AWOL from a Texas Air Force base, where they had been learning English. Even as they were in the middle of escaping the law, though, many of the deserters still managed to spend some quality time on Facebook. Not long after the BOLO ...

As the U.S. continues to slog its way through the war in Afghanistan, military strategists have been forced to come up with new and inventive ways to combat large groups of insurgents -- including, apparently, a weapon that convinces targets that they're on fire. The 'pain ray' weapon, known as the Active Denial System, uses millimeter waves to heat the top layer of an individual's skin in ...

In an effort to assist U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the Army has commissioned a company to develop a surveillance airship that's longer than a football field. According to Space.com, Northrop Grumman Corp. recently received a $517 million contract from the Army to build as many as three Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicles (LEMV), which can carry 2,500-pounds while hovering 20,000-feet above ...

If you happen to be a fan of the Taliban, you may now have another thing to worry about besides your psychological well-being: hackers. As Wired reports, a Taliban-endorsed, online jihadi forum has apparently come under cyber-siege from people who, shock of shocks, disagree with what the radical Islamic organization espouses. Abu al-Aina'a al-Khorasani, the administrator of the belligerent forum ...