The Wall Street Journal, here:
... The strait has been a particular source of frustration. Before the U.S. went to war, Trump told his team that Iran’s government would likely capitulate before closing the strait, and that even if Tehran tried, the U.S. military could handle it, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Some of the president’s advisers were caught off guard that tanker traffic would grind to a halt so quickly after the bombing began, according to a person in contact with the White House.
Trump has since marveled at the ease with which the strait was closed. A guy with a drone can shut it down, Trump has said to people, expressing belated irritation that the key waterway was so vulnerable. He has publicly oscillated between demanding support from allies to help open it and insisting that the U.S. doesn’t need or want military assistance. ...
White House concerns about security threats have been heightened, aides said.
In recent weeks, for example, Trump and his team have noticed an increase in security. On a cloudless night in April at Mar-a-Lago, every umbrella was up on the patio in an unusual arrangement, guests said. Club members were told that there was an effort to limit drone visibility, a Mar-a-Lago member said.
Rubio told others about standing outside his home at the military compound where he lives and watching a suspicious drone, administration officials said. Secret Service protection teams have expanded to carry weapons White House officials had never seen before. ...
Sophisticated drones attacked Louisiana’s Barksdale bomber base
... Barksdale AFB does not have air defenses, nor does it have fighter jets that can take down drones.
The airbase does have some electronic countermeasures that were designed to disable GPS and the datalinks between the drones and their remote operators. The electronic countermeasures failed to work. ...
The drones could have come from a potential adversary, China being best equipped to produce a drone of the type that flew over Barksdale. From what has been observed, the drone design surpasses almost anything in the US arsenal.
What we know is that the drones had extraordinary range, could resist broad spectrum jamming, and featured non-commercial signal characteristics. Even more provocatively, the drones used various ingress and egress routes and operated in dispersed patterns, making traceability (via trying to triangulate on signals) virtually impossible.
We do not know if the drones transmitted information while they were over the base or stored information they transmitted later, or whether the drones may have had satellite links.
... realistically the US is years away from a real domestic counter drone capability. Hot Air covered the story yesterday.
Why do Reuters and CNBC bend over backwards to obscure who did what to whom?
U.S. military shoots down government drone in Texas accident, Reuters sources say
The U.S. military shot down a government drone with a laser-based anti-drone system, an accident that prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to bar flights on Thursday in an area around Fort Hancock, Texas, congressional aides told Reuters.
Congressional aides told Reuters the Pentagon used the high-energy laser system to shoot down a Customs and Border Protection drone near the Mexican border, in an area that often has incursions from Mexican drones used by drug cartels.
The Pentagon, Federal Aviation Administration and Customs and Border Protection issued a statement saying the military used a “counter-unmanned aircraft system ... to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace.” ...
CBP deployed the laser technology this month to reportedly take down four suspected cartel drones, despite warnings from the FAA that the technology had not been deemed safe to use in the same vicinity as commercial flights, an aide told Reuters, adding agencies told them the laser had never before been deployed domestically.
Two weeks ago the military used this laser, and missed!
US military used laser to take down Border Protection drone, lawmakers say
How cartel members are getting drone training in Ukraine
... Some cartels have turned to drones to help strike rival compounds, and even dropped grenades on other drug strongholds in the country. ...
... Explosions were reported in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, at about 2 a.m. local time (0600 GMT), according to images circulating on social media that could not be independently verified. ...
More.
... Soleimani was assassinated on 3 January 2020 around 1:00 a.m. local time (22:00 UTC 2 January),[158] by a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport.[159]
More.
... Trae Stephens, a Thiel ally and self-proclaimed “arms dealer” who co-founded the drone warfare company Anduril (another warped Lord of the Rings reference), frames his work as part of a quest to “carry out God’s command to bring his Kingdom to earth as it is in Heaven.” Stephens’s wife, Michelle, co-founded ACTS 17 Collective (Acknowledging Christ in Technology and Society), which evangelizes to tech workers and is hosting Thiel’s Antichrist lectures. ...
More.
There is no such command.
Some Christians still understand that:
[Turning Point USA speaker] Leigh-Allyn Baker rallied her fellow parishioners at Conduit Church in Franklin, Tennessee, 20 miles south of the capital, to not let Charlie Kirk’s death be in vain.
In a video the church played for a service Sept. 14, Baker encouraged the audience to speak more boldly and publicly for their conservative values than ever before. ...
Conduit congregants welcomed Baker’s video with whoops, shouts and tears, signaling a shared grief. Among those congregants, one person wore a hat that read: “Pray hard, lift heavy, stay deadly.”
But Christians who are angry over Kirk’s death cannot be violent or retaliatory, [Conduit pastor Darren] Tyler said in his sermon.
“Some of you are angry. Some of you want revenge,” Tyler said. “The Bible speaks very clearly: ‘Vengeance is mine, says the Lord,’” Tyler said. “If you’re thinking about it, I’m rebuking you right now. We do not make Jesus king by force.” ...
Poland says it shot down Russian drones that violated its airspace during attack on Ukraine
... talk is commonplace of how these cheap drones are revolutionizing current wars and will be the critical tools of a so-called second civil war ...
... Multiple sources told the Guardian that the FBI has major concerns about the accelerationist neo-Nazi sect on the far right – one calling for an insurgency against the US government – and other ultra-violent actors in the same ideological space, eyeing the use of FPV drones for domestic attacks. ...
... evidence has emerged of military-trained neo-Nazis with relevant skillsets having pinpointed the drones as a potential tool ...
... [Joshua] Fisher-Birch first spotted the Substack and vouched for its credibility. According to him, the writer’s alleged background is not only “significant” but “violent white supremacist groups would find his drone experience to be useful”. ...
... The Russian bombardment on Sunday night included 355 drones, Yuriy Ihnat, head of the Ukrainian air force’s communications department, told The Associated Press.
The previous night, Russia fired 298 drones and 69 missiles of various types at Ukraine in what Ukrainians said was the largest combined aerial assault during the conflict. From Friday to Sunday, Russia launched around 900 drones at Ukraine, officials said. ...
Russia has this month broken its record for aerial bombardments of Ukraine three times. ...
In all, Russia used 69 missiles of various types and 298 drones, including Iranian-designed Shahed drones, he told The Associated Press. ...
Ivan Fedorenko, 80, said he regrets letting their two dogs into the house after the air raid siren went off. “They burned to death,” he said. “I want to bury them, but I’m not allowed yet.” ...
