Breaking: Explosions rock Kabul

Kabul
(CNN) -- Two huge explosions shook Afghanistan's capital early Friday, wounding at least five people, a hospital coordinator said.

The blast erupted near the Safi Landmark Hotel in the neighborhood of Shahr-E-Naw, where there are a number of government buildings and U.N. offices as well as supermarkets, banks, diplomatic facilities and villas for well-to-do Afghans.
The force of the first explosion -- which struck about 6:30 a.m. (9 p.m. Thursday ET) was so strong that it shook CNN correspondent Ben Wedeman awake, he said.
"We saw smoke rising over the area and heard a fair amount of gunfire -- automatic and single shot," he said from north-central Kabul.

The blast erupted near the Safi Landmark Hotel in the neighborhood of Shahr-E-Naw, where there are a number of government buildings and U.N. offices.

A few minutes later, a second large explosion occurred, he said. Sporadic gunfire was continuing, he said.
Afghan police blocked off roads leading to the area. Windows were shattered in nearby buildings.

Deep Mole: Hamas founder's son worked for Israel as spy.

Jerusalem


(CNN) -- The son of a Hamas official worked for Israeli intelligence and was the Jewish state's "most valuable source in the militant organization's leadership," a news report said Wednesday.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said Mosab Hassan Yousef, 32, son of the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, was an informant for Israel's domestic security service known as the Shin Bet, beginning in 1997. He had been recruited while serving time in prison.

The information Yousef passed on was considered so important and saved so many lives that his Shin Bet handlers gave him the nickname "The Green Prince," a reference to his relation to the Hamas founder and the color of the movement's flag.
Yousef was instrumental in the arrest of a number of top Palestinian officials, including Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti and Hamas military wing members Abdullah Barghouti and Ibrahim Hamid, the report said.

The report is based on Haaretz's interview with Yousef and on excerpts from his soon-to-be-released memoir called "Son of Hamas."

In 2007, Yousef left the region for the United States and spoke publicly about his conversion to Christianity and his renunciation of Hamas.
In the Haaretz article, a former Israeli handler described Yousef as being so valuable that he deserved to win the Israel security prize.

"His grasp of intelligence matters was just as good as ours -- the ideas, the insights," said the handler identified as Capt. Loai in Yousef's book, Haaretz reported. "One insight of his was worth 1,000 hours of thought by top experts," he is quoted as saying.

Gideon Ezra, a former Shin Bet chief who stepped down before Yousef was reportedly recruited, said it was unusual for one informant to pass on information "on so many acts of terror" and characterized the case as an exception.
"I don't know anyone who was in the Hamas and who became a Christian. But only because he went to the United States and became a Christian did he write such a book. Because I don't think an agent here would do the same," Ezra said.

Ezra said the Shin Bet -- also known as the Shabak -- has hundreds of agents providing information. "I don't think that he is the only one who helped the Shabak," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, which speaks publicly for the Shin Bet, refused to comment.
In a phone interview, Yousef told Haaretz that he was speaking out about his informant activities as a means of sending a message of peace to Israel.

"Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis," Yousef is quoted as saying, "That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels. ... The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis."
Yousef also expressed regret that much of his work with the Shin Bet could be undone by a deal to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas captured in 2006.

"I wish I were in Gaza now," the paper quotes him. "I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done."

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Predator C "Gray Eagle" slated to begin tests at Edwards

AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY

By Guy Norris

General Atomics-Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) expects to get the go-ahead from FAA to start tests of the stealthy, turbofan-powered unmanned Predator C Avenger at the U.S. Air Force’s Edwards Air Force Base test range in California.

“We anticipate receiving approval from the FAA in the immediate future to fly into the Edwards AFB range so that we may complete full envelope flight testing,” says GA-ASI Chairman and CEO Neal Blue. The V-tailed, swept-wing vehicle first flew on April 4 last year and, according to GA-ASI at the time, was provisionally slated to undertake a test program lasting up to three months.

Despite what appears to be a longer-than-expected evaluation, Blue adds that “flight tests of the Predator C Avenger are progressing as expected, with routine issues being addressed as the testing process continues.”

Up until now, Avenger flight tests have been undertaken in relatively restricted airspace close to the company’s test facilities in the Mojave Desert; the transfer to the Edwards range will allow tests at higher altitudes and speeds. The Avenger’s operational altitude is up to 60,000 feet, and the Pratt Whitney Canada PW545B engine is expected to give the vehicle a top speed “considerably greater” than 400 knots, according to GA-ASI. Blue adds that a second aircraft is due to be completed later this year.

The transition of the Predator C to the range comes as initial tests wrap up on the two latest variants of the current Predator for the U.S. Army and Customs and Border Protection Service. Weapons tests of the U.S. Army’s MQ-1C Sky Warrior, a heavily modified derivative of the Predator A, were successfully completed earlier this month following the last live firings of nine Hellfire P+ missiles. The version of the Lockheed Martin Hellfire II is the first to be specifically developed for a UAV and is designed with a full 360-degree targeting capability.

READ THE FULL STORY AT AVWK HERE

Pain in the air: Special Ops Gunships To Get Pain-Inducing Weapons

The Pentagon has been researching nonlethal pain rays since the mid-’90s, but finding a vehicle to carry them has proven to be a challenge. Researchers have mounted these microwave weapons—which repel people by heating water molecules just under the skin, reportedly without damaging tissue—on trucks, guard towers and Humvees, but the U.S. military has never deployed them for real-world use. (Using such weapons on civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan is not seen as a good way to win hearts and minds.)

Undaunted, the Air Force is now trying to install pain rays on Special Operations gunships, which are 98-foot-long AC-130 aircraft originally designed to haul cargo. The Airborne Active Denial System would require a beam generator of unprecedented size, says Diana Loree, manager of the program at the Air Force Research Lab.

Megawatt microwave generators (called gyrotrons) already exist, producing intense heat in plasma-research laboratories and factories that need to melt glass or composite materials, but the military program requires a generator twice as large as any existing model. AFRL staff hope to demonstrate a giant gyrotron during ground tests in 2014, Loree says. Special Ops forces might welcome an overhead nonlethal weapon that disperses mobs or stops people from advancing on downed aircraft. Also, the use of an energy weapon during a clandestine mission would be less prone to public outcry.

READ THE FULL STORY AT POPULAR MECHANICS HERE

Red Flag Revs Up

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
More than 70 warplanes will be taking off and landing at Nellis Air Force Base twice a day during another Red Flag air combat training exercise .

The increased flight activity from the base to the 15,000-square-mile range north of Las Vegas Valley began Monday and runs through March 5. The activity could cause more aircraft noise over Southern Nevada than normal


Base officials said departures will occur in the early afternoon and again about 7 p.m. They said the aircraft will return after training missions that last up to four hours.

The 414th Combat Training Squadron hosts Red Flag exercises. This one will involve planes from New Mexico, Texas, South Carolina, Washington, Arizona, California, Oklahoma, New York, Georgia, Nebraska and Washington, D.C., and Australia and the United Kingdom.