Hunt underway for Libyan weapons stores

A month after U.S. officials told ABC News they were moving quickly to secure unguarded weapons in Libya, human rights investigators have found a huge cache of unprotected weapons, including bombs, tank shells and dozens of surface-to-air missiles, in the city of Sirte.

"Anybody want a surface-to-air missile?" asks Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, in a video shot Sunday in near where Moammar Gadhafi and his son Mutassim made their last stand. Though the U.S. is rushing more and more specialists to Libya in a race to find the massive stores of weapons that have gone missing since the start of the Libyan uprising, Bouckaert beat them to Sirte.

Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro told ABC News that there was "obviously" a race to find the weapons before they fall into the hands of terrorists, "and that's why we're deploying people as quickly as we possibly can." Shapiro said the U.S. plans to increase its presence on the ground from 10 teams of weapons specialists, or less than 35 people total, to 50 teams.

"We believe that based on our examination of the numerous sites that thousands of missiles were actually destroyed during the NATO bombing campaign," said Shapiro, "and [that another] thousand missiles have been disabled or damaged."

Libyans alerted by the U.S. reached the Sirte site found by Human Rights Watch on Thursday, according to Shapiro, and moved the missiles there "to a more secure location." Shapiro denied that the Libyans had gone to the site because ABC News planned to report on it, but said the U.S. had "immediately acted" on information provided by Human Rights Watch. He said it would have been difficult to get to Sirte earlier because there was still fighting in the city last week.

In September, Shapiro said the U.S. was "making great progress" in accounting for the Gadhafi regime's missing munitions, but that the U.S. did not have a clear picture of how many missiles it was attempting to track down. Just last week, during a visit to Libya, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "I am pleased to announce that we are going to put even more money into helping Libya secure and destroy dangerous stockpiles of weapons."

It would take only one of the shoulder-fired, heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles, which have a range of two miles, to bring down a commercial aircraft. On Sunday, Bouckaert found dozens of Russian SA-7 missiles scattered across the ground in Sirte, along with empty crates.

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US flying drones out of Ethiopia

BBC:

The US military has begun flying drone aircraft from a base in Ethiopia, as part of its fight against Islamist militants in neighbouring Somalia.

US officials have confirmed to the BBC that the base, in the southern city of Arba Minch, is now operational.

But they stressed that the remotely-piloted drones were being used only for surveillance, and not for air strikes.

It is part of a growing counter-terrorism presence in the region as the US pursues groups with al-Qaeda links.

The US military has reportedly spent millions of dollars upgrading the remote, civilian airport - from which Reaper drones are now being flown.

The remotely-piloted aircraft can be equipped with missiles and satellite guided bombs.

But officials have told the BBC the drones are flying unarmed because their use is considered sensitive by Ethiopia's government.

Their role is surveillance of the al-Shabab militant group - based in Somalia, and already the focus of drone missions flown from other bases in the region.

South Korea plans to build own stealth fighter.

DAILY TECH

For two decades, the U.S. has been at the forefront of stealth fighter technology. The first operational stealth fighter to come from the U.S. was the F-117 Nighthawk, which has been retired. Today, the U.S. Air Force is using the F-35 Lightning II and F-22 Raptor fighters both use second-generation stealth technology.

In Asia, the Chinese are well underway on new stealth fighters, and now the South Koreans are jumping into the mix.

The Korean fighter is called the KF-X and it is a twin-engine fighter that aims to fall between the speed and range of a Lockheed Martin F-16 and Boeing F-15. The Koreans plan to develop the KF-X over the next nine years with a projected budget of $5 billion. That seems like a laughably low budget considering the latest generation U.S. stealth aircraft cost many times that amount to develop.

The goal for mass production is currently set at 2020 for the Korean fighter. South Korea also plans to use new weapons on the KF-X including new variants of the AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. Other weapons will include guided bombs and anti-ship missiles.

It's worth noting that Flight Global says the KF-X was previously seen with canard wings, but the version shown at the Seoul Air Show has no canards. South Korean officials are already in talks with Turkey and Indonesia has joined the program.


Images: South Korean KF-X Stealth Fighter [Source: Flight Global]

Most Powerful Nuke Being Dismantled Today

AMARILLO, Texas (AP) — The last of the nation's most powerful nuclear bombs — a weapon hundreds of times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima — is being disassembled nearly half a century after it was put into service at the height of the Cold War.

The final components of the B53 bomb will be broken down today at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, the nation's only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility. The completion of the dismantling program is a year ahead of schedule, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, and aligns with President Barack Obama's goal of reducing the number of nuclear weapons.
Thomas D'Agostino, the nuclear administration's chief, called the bomb's elimination a "significant milestone."

First put into service in 1962, when Cold War tensions peaked during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the B53 weighed 10,000 pounds and was the size of a minivan. According to the American Federation of Scientists, it was 600 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II.

The B53 was designed to destroy facilities deep underground, and it was carried by B-52 bombers.

Since it was made using older technology by engineers who have since retired or died, developing a disassembly process took time. Engineers had to develop complex tools and new procedures to ensure safety.

"We knew going in that this was going to be a challenging project, and we put together an outstanding team with all of our partners to develop a way to achieve this objective safely and efficiently," said John Woolery, the plant's general manager.

Many of the B53s were disassembled in the 1980s, but a significant number remained in the U.S. arsenal until they were retired from the stockpile in 1997. Pantex spokesman Greg Cunningham said he couldn't comment on how many of the bombs have been disassembled at the Texas plant.

The weapon is considered dismantled when the roughly 300 pounds of high explosives inside are separated from the special nuclear material, known as the pit. The uranium pits from bombs dismantled at Pantex will be stored on an interim basis at the plant, Cunningham said.

The material and components are then processed, which includes sanitizing, recycling and disposal, the National Nuclear Security Administration said last fall when it announced the Texas plant's role in the B53 dismantling.

The plant will play a large role in similar projects as older weapons are retired from the U.S.'s nuclear arsenal.

F-15 crashes in Nevada- pilot ejects safely

ALAMO, Nev. — An Air Force fighter jet crashed in a sparsely populated part of southern Nevada on Monday, but the pilot was able to eject from the aircraft and didn’t suffer any injuries, authorities said.

The F-15C Eagle from Nellis Air Force Base crashed on federal land northwest of Alamo, Nev., said Lt. Ken Lustig, an Air Force spokesman. Alamo is about 100 miles north of Las Vegas.

Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee said a citizen reported seeing a large explosion and fireball west of U.S. Highway 93 shortly after 4 p.m. Deputies made their way over rough terrain and through a ranch toward the plume of smoke about five miles from the highway, he said.

“It was out in the desert, really hard to get to,” Lee said. When deputies arrived, they found a debris field about 100 yards long.

“It didn’t look like the plane slammed into the ground,” the sheriff said. “There was a lot of the plane left, but it burned up.”

The pilot had started walking and was picked up by a military helicopter about 30 minutes after the crash, Lee said. He was flown to Mike O’Callaghan Federal Hospital near Las Vegas for an examination that revealed no injuries, Lustig said.