ON THE FIGHT
The head of al-Qaeda in Iraq is now reportedly in Aleppo, Syria to control fighters and help rein in head of al-Nusra.
The New York Times goes in-depth into the special operations forces to be used going forwards in Afghanistan.
Of the 103 countries within the U.S. European Command and U.S Army Africa areas of responsibility, the Joint Multinational Training Command’s Training Support Activity Europe provides support to over a third of them.
Word has leaked that the U.S. is preparing to capture or kill the perpetrators of the deadly attack in Benghazi.
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel met the diplomatic delegation from Turkey at the Pentagon yesterday.
In an email message to the entire Intelligence Community workforce, Clapper informed the Intelligence Community of his decision to exempt civilian employees paid through the National Intelligence Program from furloughs.
The FBI, however, may not be so lucky: FBI Director Robert Mueller said the agency may be forced to furlough agents in fiscal 2014 because of sequestration. This week, Mueller asked the subcommittee to help the FBI lessen the sequester’s effects. The FBI had 36,000 employees as of December.
Even though the Air Force is poised to discard 21 C-27Js before the end of fiscal year 2013, service officials have issued a request to purchase more of the cargo aircraft. The Air Force’s active duty leaders have said the service likes the aircraft, but can’t afford it with the forthcoming budget cuts. Air National Guard leaders have responded saying the aircraft will save the service money and the Guard, which was set to receive the bulk of the fleet, is being unfairly targeted to absorb the brunt of the service’s budget cuts.
ON TECH, PRIVACY AND SECRECY
Lockheed Martin announced this week that it has just deployed Increment 3 of the FBI’s Next Generation Identification fingerprinting system. Increment 3 provides, among other things, “significant improvement in latent fingerprint search accuracy” according to Lockheed. The new National Palm Print System contains latent palm prints that will be searchable on a nationwide basis for the first time.
Via the Associated Press: “The official says CIA chief John Brennan met Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. He did not disclose other details.”
CONTRACT WATCH
The Department of State is seeking to replace a contract security force in the Dominican Republic it has deemed unpreforming and in violation of the contractual agreement.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded two contract options worth about $315 million to Lockheed Martin. NOAA currently operates four satellites that Lockheed will help run, with a potential full contract vehicle totaling around $1 billion.
John Hillen, who succeeded John Brennan as CEO of Sotera when he entered government, has stepped down. Hillen, according to news reports, will remain actively involved on the board of the company. Sotera was formerly known as the The Analysis Corporation.
