Aboard the USS George HW Bush: The US Navy made aviation history on Tuesday by launching an unmanned jet off an aircraft carrier for the first time, taking an important step toward expanded use of drones by the American military with an eye on possible rivals like China and Iran.
The bat-winged X-47B stealth drone roared off the USS George HW Bush near the coast of Virginia and flew a series of pre-programmed maneuvers around the ship before veering away toward a Naval air station in Maryland where it was scheduled to land.
"This is really a red-letter day. May 14 we all saw history happen" said Rear Admiral Ted Branch, the Atlantic naval air commander. "It's a marker ... between naval aviation as we've known it and the future of naval aviation with the launch of the X-47B."
Because of its stealth potential and a range nearly twice that of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the X-47B and its successors are seen as a potential answer to the threat posed by medium-range anti-ship missiles developed by China and Iran, defense analysts said....
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02:46 AM, May 16, 2013
Islamabad: A Pakistani court on Thursday declared that US drone strikes on al-Qaeda and Taliban elements in the country's lawless tribal belt were tantamount to a "war crime" and the armed forces would have the right to shoot down the CIA-operated spy planes. The Peshawar High Court issued the verdict against the US drones in response to four petitions that contended the missile attacks killed civilians and caused collateral damage....
12:26 AM, May 10, 2013
Islamabad: Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has acknowledged his regime secretly cleared US drone strikes, becoming the first serving or retired Pakistani official to publicly admit that the country had a deal on attacks by the CIA-operated spy planes. Musharraf said there was no blanket agreement with the US on the controversial drone campaign and that his regime had cleared missile strikes "only on very few occasions where the target...
03:55 PM, Apr 12, 2013
German Police have arrested a 28-year-old Pakistani man on suspicion of spying on high-tech military data, the office of the federal public prosecutor said in a statement on Thursday. ...
02:27 AM, Mar 29, 2013
The Pakistani Taliban have warned the government of a severe backlash if it continues making claims of having broken the back of the militants in operations in different parts of the country's northwest. ...
12:39 PM, Mar 11, 2013
Iran's Revolutionary Guards have brought down a foreign surveillance drone during a military exercise, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said on Saturday. ...
02:36 PM, Feb 24, 2013
Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard said on Saturday that it had captured a foreign unmanned aircraft during a military exercise in southern Iran. ...
02:39 AM, Feb 24, 2013
President Barack Obama on February 14 promised to be more forthcoming with the American public on his administration's campaign of lethal drone strikes amid criticism over the targeting of suspected US terrorism suspects abroad. Obama, under pressure from the left and right to allow greater scrutiny of the secret decision-making process for killing Americans overseas, vowed to work with Congress to craft a "mechanism" to be more open about how...
10:53 AM, Feb 15, 2013
CIA Director-designate John Brennan strongly defended anti-terror attacks by unmanned drones on February 7 under close questioning at a protest-disrupted confirmation hearing. On a second controversial topic, he said that after reading a classified intelligence report on harsh interrogation techniques, he does not know if waterboarding has yielded useful information. ...
12:05 PM, Feb 08, 2013
Al Qaida's No 2 in Yemen died of wounds sustained in a US drone attack in 2012 in southern Yemen, the country's official news agency and a security official said on Thursday. Saeed al-Shihri, a Saudi national who fought in Afghanistan and spent six years in the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, was wounded in a missile attack in the southern city of Saada on October 28, according to...
08:18 AM, Jan 25, 2013
More than 10 suspected al Qaeda operatives were killed by an explosion in a house in south Yemen where they were making bombs and at least three others died in a drone strike, tribal and official sources said on Sunday. A bomb ripped through a house in the province of al-Bayda on Saturday night, the state news agency Saba and a local official said. ...
07:55 PM, Jan 20, 2013
At least 16 militants were killed and seven others injured in a coordinated attack by US drones which fired a volley of missiles at three Taliban hideouts in the restive South Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan on January 6. Four CIA-operated spy planes carried out the attack in Babargarh area of South Waziristan, security officials said. ...
05:00 PM, Jan 06, 2013
Washington: Iranian warplanes fired multiple rounds at an unmanned unarmed US surveillance aircraft in international airspace over the Gulf last week, but the craft was undamaged and returned safely to its base, Pentagon spokesman George Little said on Thursday. President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta were both advised early on about the unprecedented incident, which occurred at about 4:50 am ET (0850 GMT) on November 1. Iran was...
02:05 AM, Nov 09, 2012
Islamabad: The roars celebrating the re-election of US President Barack Obama on television give Mohammad Rehman Khan a searing headache, as years of grief and anger come rushing back. The 28-year-old Pakistani accuses the president of robbing him of his father, three brothers and a nephew, all killed in a US drone attack a month after Obama first took office. "The same person who attacked my home has gotten re-elected,"...
12:46 PM, Nov 08, 2012
New Delhi: Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan was offloaded from a US-bound flight at Toronto International airport in Canada on Friday just hours after he criticised the US for drone attacks in Pakistan's restive Waziristan region. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief was reportedly questioned for his fundraising activities and his alleged links to the Taliban. Imran later tweeted about his interrogation and stood by his critical stand on US drones....
07:19 AM, Oct 27, 2012
Islamabad: A huge anti-drone rally led by former cricketer Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party was on Sunday barred from entering South Waziristan, where it was to culminate in a large public meeting. They were stopped at Manzai, close to the tribal area by the local administration, as their cars did not have proper documents required to enter the region, Geo TV reported. The rally reached Manzai after removing freight...
12:10 AM, Oct 08, 2012
London: The Pakistani Taliban has offered protection to Imran Khan who is scheduled to hold a peace march in the violence-prone tribal areas on Sunday, it was reported in London. Imran Khan, a former cricketer, now heads the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. His rallies have witnessed a massive participation. The Pakistani Taliban's senior commanders said a meeting headed by the group's leader Hakimullah Mehsud set aside earlier instructions to send suicide bombers...
05:01 PM, Oct 02, 2012
United Nations: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday declared at the United Nations that his country has suffered more than any other nation in the "epic struggle" against terrorism, with US drone strikes on its territory adding to complexities and it should not be asked to do more. "No country and no people have suffered more in the epic struggle against terrorism, than Pakistan," he told world leaders in...
11:46 AM, Sep 26, 2012
Washington: The US supports Pakistan's sovereignty, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, reminding Islamabad that all sovereign nations carry certain obligations like preventing threats to neighbours and the international community. "We support Pakistan's sovereignty, but we are clear that all sovereign nations carry certain obligations: to protect the human rights of their citizens, to control their territory, to prevent threats to their neighbours and the international community," Clinton told reporters...
10:37 AM, Sep 22, 2012
Cairo: Al Qaeda's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri confirmed in a video recording the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi, a veteran militant said to have been a leader of the group's operations, and who had survived previous US attacks. The US government said in June that a drone strike in Pakistan had killed Libi, dealing the biggest in a series of blows to the militant group since the raid that killed Osama...
11:09 AM, Sep 11, 2012
