MC-12 crashes in Afghanistan - 6 killed.

A U.S. military plane has crashed in eastern Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of three Americans. There are no indications that the aircraft was brought down by enemy fire, said a defense official.

“International Security Assistance Force service members and one ISAF civilian died following an aircraft mishap in eastern Afghanistan today,” said a statement released by NATO in Afghanistan.

A defense official told ABC News that the incident involved an MC-12 reconnaissance aircraft flying a nighttime mission over eastern Afghanistan.

MC-12′s are Beechcraft propeller aircraft that carry multiple surveillance systems that enable the monitoring of different areas at the same time. The feeds are monitored by technicians who fly in the rear of the small aircraft.

The crash comes on the same day that an ISAF spokesperson confirmed that a Blackhawk helicopter crash in mid-December that killed six soldiers was the result of “enemy action.”

The spokesperson said that the families of the six soldiers were notified Thursday that “enemy action caused the crash and loss of life.”

At the time of the crash, on December 17, defense officials said there had been no indications that enemy fire had brought down the helicopter.

The investigation into the crash continues, so no other details were provided.

A defense official would not go into what kind of “enemy action” brought down the helicopter, but said the investigation had determined there was no firefight on the ground after the crash.

USAF Nuke Officers under investigation for possessing illegal drugs

BUSINESS INSIDER: Two US Air Force officers in charge of launching nuclear missiles are under investigation for possessing illegal drugs, officials said Thursday, in the latest setback for the country's nuclear force.

The two officers, assigned to Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, "are being investigated by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations for illegal drug possession," spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told AFP.

The military offered no further details of the case but the news came as US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel paid a rare visit to an ICBM base in Wyoming.

Hagel's trip follows a series of embarrassing incidents and revelations for the Air Force's nuclear team, including internal reviews signalling morale problems among missile units and the sacking of a number of senior officers.

Speaking at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Hagel made no mention of the criminal case but sought to reassure service members that their work was valued, while reminding them of the high stakes at hand.

"In what you do every day, there is no room for error, none. You know that. The American people expect that," Hagel said.

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Der Spiegel: NSA intercepting and bugging laptops?

According to a new report from Der Spiegel based on internal NSA documents, the signals intelligence agency's elite hacking unit (TAO) is able to conduct sophisticated wiretaps in ways that make Hollywood fantasy look more like reality. The report indicates that the NSA, in collaboration with the CIA and FBI, routinely and secretly intercepts shipping deliveries for laptops or other computer accessories in order to implant bugs before they reach their destinations. According to Der Spiegel, the NSA's TAO group is able to divert shipping deliveries to its own "secret workshops" in a method called interdiction, where agents load malware onto the electronics or install malicious hardware that can give US intelligence agencies remote access.

While the report does not indicate the scope of the program, or who the NSA is targeting with such wiretaps, it's a unique look at the agency's collaborative efforts with the broader intelligence community to gain hard access to communications equipment. One of the products the NSA appears to use to compromise target electronics is codenamed COTTONMOUTH, and has been available since 2009; it's a USB "hardware implant" that secretly provides the NSA with remote access to the compromised machine.

This tool, among others, is available to NSA agents through what Der Spiegel describes as a mail-order spy catalog. The report indicates that the catalog offers backdoors into the hardware and software of the most prominent technology makers, including Cisco, Juniper Networks, Dell, Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor, Samsung, and Huawei. Many of the targets are American companies. The report indicates that the NSA can even exploit error reports from Microsoft's Windows operating system; by intercepting the error reports and determining what's wrong with a target's computer, the NSA can then attack it with Trojans or other malware.

In response to Der Spiegel's report, Cisco senior vice president John Stewart wrote that "we are deeply concerned with anything that may impact the integrity of our products or our customers' networks," and that the company does "not work with any government to weaken our products for exploitation." Other US companies have fired back against reports of NSA tampering in recent months, including Microsoft, which labeled the agency an "advanced persistent threat" over its efforts to secretly collect private user data within the internal networks of Google and Yahoo.


The Der Spiegel report, which gives a broad look at TAO operations, also highlights the NSA's cooperation with other intelligence agencies to conduct Hollywood-style raids. Unlike most of the NSA's operations which allow for remote access to targets, Der Spiegel notes that the TAO's programs often require physical access to targets. To gain physical access, the NSA reportedly works with the CIA and FBI on sensitive missions that sometimes include flying NSA agents on FBI jets to plant wiretaps. "This gets them to their destination at the right time and can help them to disappear again undetected after even as little as a half hour's work," the report notes.

The NSA currently faces pressure from the public, Congress, federal courts, and privacy advocates over its expansive spying programs. Those programs, which include bulk telephone surveillance of American citizens, are said by critics to violate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches, and were uncovered earlier this year by whistleblower Edward Snowden. Beyond the programs that scoop up data on American citizens, Snowden's documents have also given a much closer look at how the spy agency conducts other surveillance operations, including tapping the phones of high-level foreign leaders.

MV-22 Osprey comes under fire in Sudan

UBA, South Sudan (AFP) - US aircraft flown into South Sudan to help with evacuation efforts on Saturday, Dec 21, 2013, came under fire, wounding four US servicemen, officials said, as fighting in the country escalated.

Three US military Osprey aircraft were hit as they headed to Bor, a rebel-held city in Jonglei state, US officials said.

"The damaged aircraft diverted to Entebbe, Uganda, where the wounded were transferred onboard a US Air Force C-17 and flown to Nairobi, Kenya for medical treatment," an updated Pentagon statement said.

"All four service members were treated and are in stable condition." The targeted aircraft was possibly a Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey.

Fired Nuke Commander went on drinking binge/misconduct while in Russia

WASHINGTON - The Air Force general who was fired from command of U.S. land-based nuclear missile forces had engaged in "inappropriate behaviour" while on official business in Russia last summer, including heavy drinking, rudeness to his hosts and associating with "suspect" women, according to an investigation report released Thursday.

The events that led to the dismissal took place while Maj. Gen. Michael Carey was in Russia in July as head of a U.S. government delegation to a nuclear security training exercise. At the time, he was commander of the 20th Air Force, responsible for all 450 of the Air Force's Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles stationed in five U.S. states.

When Carey was relieved of command in October, the Air Force said he had engaged in unspecified misbehaviour while on a business trip, but it did not say the episode was in Russia, nor did it indicate the specific allegations against him.

Carey's firing was one of several setbacks for the nuclear force this year. The Associated Press has documented serious security lapses and complaints of low morale and "rot" within the force, as well as an independent assessment of "burnout" among a sampling of nuclear missile launch officers and security forces.

After the Russia trip, a member of the delegation lodged a complaint about Carey's behaviour. That person, described as a female staff member in the Office of the Secretary of Defence, asserted to investigators that on the delegation's first night in Moscow, July 15, Carey was drinking and speaking loudly in a hotel lounge about how he is "saving the world" and that his forces suffer from low morale.

The investigators said Carey, whom they interviewed at length on Sept. 4, seemed to forget substantial portions of what happened in Russia. The report also said that at times he clammed up or gave testimony at odds with others in the delegation.

"Maj. Gen. Carey was generally less credible than the other witnesses," the report said, adding that at times he was flippant and refused to answer certain questions.

"Gen. Carey either had a poor recall of significant events, perhaps due to his alcohol consumption, or was untruthful during the interview," the report said.

After interviews with seven delegation members, the investigators concluded that Carey "engaged in inappropriate behaviour" that amounted to "conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman," as defined in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

In response to the investigators' report, Carey received what the Air Force calls a "letter of counselling." That's a form of discipline for noncriminal misbehaviour.

In response to an AP request, the Air Force said Carey was not commenting on the investigation report.

After he was relieved of duty in October, Carey was reassigned as special assistant to the commander of Air Force Space Command, where he has no responsibility for nuclear weapons. He remains in that post.

The Air Force has commented only once about the Carey case since his firing was announced Oct. 11. In mid-November, the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Mark Welsh, told a group of reporters that Carey had stumbled in a way that could not be tolerated, despite Carey's long career and his record of accomplishment.

Welsh said Carey told him, "I've embarrassed myself, my Air Force, I'm sorry.

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