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Israel conducted a rare airstrike inside Syria near the border with Lebanon, hitting a convoy of trucks, foreign officials said Wednesday, amid fears President Bashar Assad's regime is providing weapons to the Islamic militant group Hezbollah.

Syrian TV says Israeli warplanes attacked research center in Damascus province at dawn on Wednesday.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed three Palestinian journalists in their cars Tuesday, a Gaza health official and the head of the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV said. Israel acknowledged targeting the men, claiming they had ties to militants. The strikes came on the seventh day of Israel's offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers. A number of journalists have been killed over the years while covering fighting between the Jewish state and the Palestinian militant group, but not in targeted strikes Israel acknowledged. Two of those killed were cameramen working for Al Aqsa TV, the centerpiece of a growing...

IAF aircraft struck the branch of the National Islamic Bank in Gaza on Monday night, the Al Jazeera network reported. According to the report, four people were wounded in the airstrike, part of the IDF’s Operation Pillar of Defense. Hamas reportedly uses the bank, which opened in the area in 2009, to pay its terrorists' salaries. Palestinian Authority-based sources also said that the IAF also struck the Rafiah home of Hamas terrorist Raed Al-Attar overnight Monday. Al-Attar’s name was mentioned in recent days as the successor to Hamas arch-terrorist Ahmed Jaabari, whose targeted killing began the operation last Wednesday. It...

US President Barack Obama has ordered the US Navy and Air Force to accelerate preparations for a limited air offensive against the Assad regime and the imposition of no-fly zones over Syria, DEBKAfile reports. Their mission will be to knock out Assad's central regime and military command centers so as to shake regime stability and restrict Syrian army and air force activity for subduing rebel action and wreaking violence on civilian populations.

Israeli fighter jets, helicopters and possibly a submarine were involved in multiple attacks on targets in Sudan last week, according to local news outlets. The reports say that Israeli jets hit targets in the eastern part of the African country, near its border with Egypt, last Thursday. They hit six Land Cruiser jeeps and killed four people. An earlier strike took place last Sunday and reportedly involved Israeli helicopters. A truck was targeted. Some reports say an Israeli submarine was also spotted at the same time. However, the Sudanese army spokesman, Col. Al-Sawarmi Haled Sa'ad, said that the military's air...

Israel will be launching a military strike as early as December in a bid to stop Iran's nuclear program, the British Daily Mail reported, based on unnamed government sources. The sources said that Israel will strike Iran's nuclear sites "sooner rather than later" and rely on logistical American support.

After nearly a decade of development, the U.S. Air Force has ordered eight MOP (massive ordnance penetrator) GBU-57A/B bunker buster bombs. These 14 ton weapons cost $3.5 million each. In the last few years, several B-2 bombers have been equipped to carry these weapons (two bombs per B-2). This was apparently meant to send a message to Iran and North Korea.

The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials. The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few options to...

BRUSSELS (AP) -- The international aerial onslaught against Moammar Gadhafi's forces has destroyed 30 percent of Libya's military capability, a senior NATO official said Tuesday.

RAS LANOUF, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi's forces hammered rebels with tanks and rockets, turning their rapid advance into a panicked retreat in an hourslong battle Tuesday. The fighting underscored the dilemma facing the U.S. and its allies in Libya: Rebels may be unable to oust Gadhafi militarily unless already contentious international airstrikes go even further in taking out his forces.

A "coalition of the willing" is rapidly forming to strike back at any military advances of the Ghaddafi regime against the rebels and Libyan civilians. Ten nations already are ready to attack. An immediate attack on pro-Ghaddafi forces after this night's UN Security Council resolution had been carefully planned, with many Arab and Western nations putting military vessels and aircrafts to the disposition of the operations.

His air force is already bombing the outskirts of the city, but not for much longer. The Security Council’s expected to vote at 6 p.m. ET and the French are telling people that airstrikes against Libyan air defenses — and maybe more — could begin immediately thereafter. At the same time, Qaddafi just delivered another insane stemwinder against the rebels on Libyan radio warning people in Benghazi that the army will be rolling into town tonight and that, if they don’t surrender, they’ll receive “no mercy.” Which means, unless someone blinks in the next few hours, that city will be...

"...a South Korean government who does not react would not be able to survive..." The United States and South Korean militaries have long had a plan (with multiple revisions over the years) for fighting and winning an all-out war with the Norks: OPLAN 5027. Regrettably, a copy of this was snaked by North Korean hackers last year. Following that debacle, a new strategy is of course in the works. But these days -despite never-ending belligerence emanating from the DPRK- fear of war on that scale has diminished on the SK/US side: the penniless Stalinist hell of North Korea is on the cusp of a possible...

The U.S. Air Force is ready to respond immediately if hostilities between the two Koreas escalate, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said Wednesday. Schwarz told reporters after North Korea's attack on Yeonpyeong Island, "The bottom line is that U.S. Forces Korea cetainly is monitoring the situation carefully." He mentioned Osan and Gunsan in South Korea, Kaneda in Okinawa, Japan, and other U.S. Air Force bases in the Pacific to emphasize that the U.S. has plenty of firepower in the region. Schwarz added USFK Commander Gen. Walter Sharp "has operational control of Air Force assets that reside on...

<p>A U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities might look just like this: a B-1bomber lancing along just above the desert floor at 900 feet per second, ducking behind mountains and beneath ridgelines to hide from enemy radar, carrying a bellyful of 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs.</p>

10/26/10 By George Friedman We are a week away from the 2010 U.S. midterm elections. The outcome is already locked in. Whether the Republicans take the House or the Senate is close to immaterial. It is almost certain that the dynamics of American domestic politics will change. The large majority held by the Democrats will be gone, and party discipline will not be strong enough (it never is) to prevent some defections. Obama now has two options in terms of domestic strategy. The first is to continue to press his agenda, knowing that it will be voted down. If the...

WASHINGTON -- Afghanistan commander Army Gen. David Petraeus has renewed orders to American troops to refrain from calling in artillery or air power when battling Taliban forces unless they're certain that no civilians are present. The Aug. 1 order, Petraeus' first since he assumed command early this summer from ousted Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was an effort to fine-tune a McChrystal directive that had angered some U.S. troops, who said the restrictions on the use of artillery and air power exposed them to greater danger. Petraeus' order, unclassified portions of which were released Wednesday, seemed unlikely to mollify that complaint,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan issued a directive on Wednesday that could facilitate use of air strikes but also called on troops to do everything possible to avoid putting civilians at risk. General David Petraeus, who took command of the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan in July, did not rewrite the rules guiding the use of force in his new "tactical directive." But U.S. officials said he clarified them in a way that may address concerns that some troops -- erring on the side of caution -- had avoided calling in air power...

A semi-official Iranian news agency reported Wednesday that Israel Air Force helicopters recently landed at a Saudi Arabia airport and unloaded equipment intended for attacking targets in a Muslim state.