Petraeus biography co-author may have revealed classified info in a speech

USA TODAY:  In October, Paula Broadwell, the woman at the center of the David Petraeus adultery case, spoke publicly about events surrounding the Benghazi attack that appeared to go beyond what was in the public record at the time.

Broadwell, co-author of a biography about Petraeus, was speaking at the University of Denver Oct. 26 and responded to questions about the attack on the U.S. Consulate that led to the death of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

"Now I don't know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually -- had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back. So that's still being vetted," she said.

Eli Lake, writing for The Daily Beast, reported that it is possible that Broadwell was confusing details of a story on Fox News that day that claimed that three of the Libyan attackers were briefly held at a CIA annex in Benghazi, not the consulate, before being turned over to the local militia.

Lake also reported that the CIA on Sunday denied the claim that prisoners were held at the annex, which has not been reported elsewhere.

In her remarks, Broadwell also talked about Petraeus' involvement in the Benghazi situation as CIA director.

"The challenging thing for General Petraeus is that in his new position he is not allowed to communicate with the press," she told the audience. "So he's known all of this, they had correspondence with the CIA station chief in Libya. Within 24 hours they kind of knew what was happening."

The remarks are contained in a 40-minute speech by Broadwell, a West Point graduate and military officer, in which she discussed her military background, how she met Petraeus and elements of his personal life, such as his transition from military officer to director of the CIA.

Petraeus resigned on Friday, citing his "poor judgment" over the extramarital affair.

Israel pummels Syrian artillery

BBC: 

Israel's military says its tanks have scored "direct hits" on Syrian artillery units after Syrian mortar shells fell near an Israeli army post.

It comes a day after Israel fired warning shots after it said a Syrian shell hit another of its army posts on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The episode is the most serious between the two countries since the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

While the tank-fire is a significant development, it does not mean Israel is being dragged into Syria's civil war, says the BBC's Wyre Davies in Jerusalem.

In fact, he adds, Israeli political and military leaders say the tank-fire is exactly the opposite - a tough but clear message to Syria that Israel will not tolerate any more bullets and mortars landing in its territory.

After the recent incidents and concerns that Syria's conflict is spilling over to neighbouring countries, Israel has warned Syria that any additional shelling, whether deliberate or accidental, would elicit a tough response.

Israel has also filed a complaint with UN forces operating in the area of the Golan Heights. The area has been relatively peaceful over the past four decades despite Israel and Syria still officially being in a state of war.

Earlier, Western nations, Qatar and Turkey welcomed the creation of a new Syrian coalition that aims to unify opposition against President Bashar al-Assad.

The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was unveiled in Doha on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Syrian government jets and helicopters bombed the rebel-held town of Ras al-Ain, near the border with Turkey, sending civilians fleeing into the Turkish settlement of Ceylanpinar. Casualties were reported.

Observers and activists estimate that more than 36,000 people have been killed in the long-running uprising against President Assad.

Hundreds of thousands have sought refuge in neighbouring countries.

CIA Director Petraeus resigns due to extramarital affair

USA TODAY  WASHINGTON—CIA Director David Petraeus announced Friday afternoon that he has resigned from his post, acknowledging that he had shown "extremely poor judgement by engaging in an extramarital affair."

A federal law enforcement official said the relationship was discovered by the FBI during the course of an unrelated security investigation. Subsequently, a number of e-mails concerning the relationship were discovered, said the official who is not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.

The bulk of the e-mails were believed to be from Petraeus to Paula Broadwell, a writer and military analyst who wrote a glowing biography of the CIA director, the official said. Aspects of the FBI investigation were continuing, but the official declined to comment on possible targets of the inquiry.

"Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA," Petraeus wrote. "After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation."

In a letter to CIA personnel, Petraeus, 60, said he met with President Obama on Thursday and asked to resign because of personal reasons. Obama accepted his resignation Friday, Petraeus said.

Petraeus' wife, Holly, is an assistant director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, charged with advocating on behalf of military service members and their families.

Obama praised Petraeus in a statement Friday and said Michael Morell, Petraeus' deputy, will step in as acting director.

"David Petraeus has provided extraordinary service to the United States for decades. By any measure, he was one of the outstanding General officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges, and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end," Obama said. "As Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, he has continued to serve with characteristic intellectual rigor, dedication, and patriotism. By any measure, through his lifetime of service David Petraeus has made our country safer and stronger.

"Today, I accepted his resignation as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I am completely confident that the CIA will continue to thrive and carry out its essential mission, and I have the utmost confidence in Acting Director Michael Morell and the men and women of the CIA who work every day to keep our nation safe. Going forward, my thoughts and prayers are with Dave and Holly Petraeus, who has done so much to help military families through her own work. I wish them the very best at this difficult time."

Morell is a career CIA officer and began his career at the agency as an analyst tracking international energy issues, then worked for 14 years as an analyst and manager on East Asia. He has held several leadership positions at the agency. Two administration officials said it was too early to say who might be in line to replace Petraeus, and that Morrell could serve as acting director for several months.

Petraeus, a retired four-star general who previously served as top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, was arguably the most vaunted military officer of a generation.

"From his long, illustrious Army career to his leadership at the helm of CIA, Dave has redefined what it means to serve and sacrifice for one's country," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a statement.

The resignation comes at a difficult time for the agency and Obama administration, which has been under intense scrutiny from Republican lawmakers for the September attack on a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans -- including the Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two CIA contractors -- dead. Petraeus and other top U.S. intelligence officials were scheduled to speak next week at a closed-door session of the Senate Intelligence Committee about the Benghazi incident.

Petraeus took over as head of the CIA in September of 2011 following his tour as head of allied forces in Afghanistan.

The CIA director's bombshell took former military colleagues by surprise.

Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who served as Petraeus' executive officer in 2007 and 2008 during the surge strategy, said, "It just goes to show were all human."

Gen. Jack Keane, a retired Army general and longtime mentor to Petraeus, said he learned about Petraeus' resignation from news reports this afternoon. Keane helped formulate the surge strategy in Iraq, which Petraeus carried out.

Keane said he was saddened by the news and considers Petraeus "the most accomplished general of ourgeneration" and compared his legacy to that of the legendary battle leaders of World War II. Petraeus is responsible for "turning around two wars," Keane said, referring to Iraq and Afghanistan. "Only Gen.MacArthur had that opportunity and he only succeeded at one," he said. MacArthur was relieved during the Korean War.

Keane said Petraeus would have wanted Obama to accept his resignation. "Knowing Gen. Petraeus he would not want the president to do anything but accept the resignation," Keane said. "He would not want to put the president in an awkward situation."

Keane predicted that Petraeus may emerge later in a prominent role, though he is not interested in elected office. "He's absolutely adamant about never desiring to seek political office."

"The world has not seen the last of Dave Petraeus," Keane said. "He has far too much to offer."

Steve Boylan, a retired Army colonel who served as Petraeus' chief spokesman for three years, said he "never would have expected" him to resign under these circumstances.

"A lot of people have put him on a very high pedestal," Boylan said. "People tend to forget that he is human and people do make mistakes….I can only suspect that in his own mind he felt he was doing the honorable thing by resigning."

Several lawmakers praised Petraeus following the announcement he was stepping down.

"General David Petraeus will stand in the ranks of America's greatest military heroes," said Sen. John McCain, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "His inspirational leadership and his genius were directly responsible – after years of failure – for the success of the surge in Iraq. General Petraeus has devoted his life to serving the country he loves, and America is so much the better for it."

In addition to Petraeus, two other top-level administration officials, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, are also expected to soon leave the Obama administration.

Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday he's also weighing whether he will remain for Obama's second term.

SEALS punished for classified leaks to video game company

WASHINGTON — Seven members of the secretive Navy SEAL Team 6, including one involved in the mission to get Osama bin Laden, have been punished for disclosing classified information, senior Navy officials said Thursday

Four other SEALs are under investigation for similar alleged violations, one official said.

They are alleged to have divulged classified information to the maker of a video game called "Medal of Honor: Warfighter."

Each of the seven received a punitive letter of reprimand and a partial forfeiture of pay for two months. Those actions generally hinder a military member's career.

The deputy commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm. Garry Bonelli, issued a statement acknowledging that nonjudicial punishments had been handed out for misconduct, but he did not offer any details.

"We do not tolerate deviations from the policies that govern who we are and what we do as sailors in the United States Navy," Bonelli said. He alluded to the importance of honoring nondisclosure agreements that SEALs sign.

He said the punishments this week "send a clear message throughout our force that we are and will be held to a high standard of accountability."

The two main complaints against the SEALs were that they did not seek the permission of their command to take part in the video project and that they showed the video designers some of their specially designed combat equipment unique to their unit, said a senior military official. The official was briefed about the case but was not authorized to speak publicly about it.

SEALs, including some of those involved in the bin Laden raid of May 2011, have been uncharacteristically prominent in the news this year.

Matt Bissonnette, who participated in the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, but later retired from the SEALs, wrote a firsthand account under the pseudonym Mark Owen, but he landed in hot water with the Pentagon even before it was published in September. The Pentagon accused him of disclosing classified information in violation of the nondisclosure agreements he had signed as a SEAL. He disputes the charge.

The SEAL mission to capture or kill Laden, while stunningly successful, encountered a number of unexpected obstacles, including the loss of a stealthy helicopter that was partially blown up by the SEALs after making a hard landing inside bin Laden's compound.

The head of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm. Sean Pybus, responded to the Bissonnette book by telling his force that "hawking details about a mission" and selling other information about SEAL training and operations puts the force and their families at risk.

SEALs, both active duty and retired, possess highly sensitive information about tactics and techniques that are central to the success of their secret and often dangerous missions overseas. That is why they are obliged to sign nondisclosure agreements when they enter service and when they leave, and it is why the Pentagon seeks to enforce such written agreements.

The punishments were first reported by CBS News.

AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.

Iran claims to have built "worlds first tilt-rotor drone."

Note: an article published on Iran's Ettelatt International website claims the Iranian military has succeeded in building "The world's first VTOL drone. Apparently Iran has never heard of Eagle Eye. 

TEHRAN - Iranian experts have succeeded in producing the world’s first vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone, which will be unveiled in the near future. 


This Iranian drone enjoys ultra-advanced technology and has been manufactured for the first time in the world, an Iranian expert in the research team in charge of building the drone, Abbas Jam, told Mehr news agency on Saturday. 

He added that the drone would be tested on Saturday and would be unveiled during the 10-Day Dawn celebrations, which will begin on January 31, marking the 34th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. 
He noted that the hushed drone does not require runways at all and can take off and land vertically.

Jam added that NASA has confirmed the manufacturing of this unmanned aerial vehicle and its information. 

Iranian researchers have recently designed and built a new radar-evading drone, named Liko, with the capacity of carrying 100 kg of cargo for 100 kilometers. 

It is also capable of non-stop flights for three hours. The 53-kg UAV can fly at an altitude of 16,000 feet and requires the shortest landing runway length. 
Karrar, Iran’s first indigenous long-range drone unveiled in August 2010, is capable of carrying a military payload of rockets to carry out bombing missions against ground targets, flying long distances at a very high speed, and gathering information. 

The country’s indigenous unmanned aerial vehicle, Shahed 129, unveiled in September 2012, can carry out combat and reconnaissance missions with its 24-hour nonstop flight capability.