TEARLINE
A suicide bomber killed himself and two others when he drove a car bomb into a U.S. consular vehicle in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
Ten Turkish soldiers and policemen have been killed during clashes with Kurdish militants near the southeastern border with Syria and Iraq.
An Islamist militant group in Mali says it has killed one of the Algerian diplomats it seized five months ago.
U.S. special operations forces have suspended the training of Afghan militias in light of recent infiltration from the Taliban and a series of so-called green on blue incidents.
ON THE INTERSECTION OF POLITICS AND NATIONAL SECURITY
The New York Times has a monster profile on Valerie Jarrett, the forceful political operative and lifelong friend of the Obama’s that holds sway over virtually every aspect of domestic and foreign policymaking.
The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization faces an uncertain future as the war in Afghanistan winds down and funding begins to run out, but its CIO hopes the work it has done can continue to be applied across the government. JIEDDO has over time won over many on Capitol Hill, and even in the face of budgetary pressure has demonstrated a remarkable ability to retain the same level of funding and personnel every fiscal year of the Obama Administration.
The American Conservative has published a scathing indictment of John Nagl, once considered one of the rising stars in Petraeus’ Army and an influential figure in the re-adoption and application of counterinsurgency strategy.
ON TECH
NASA is now developing spacecraft powered by smartphones. The space agency’s PhoneSat program aims to develop prototype nanosatellites built around HTC handsets. The two PhoneSat 1.0 models are built around Nexus One smartphones, while the single PhoneSat 2.0 model is build around a Nexus S. Each weighs less than four pounds.
