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Allawi announces “disappearance” of 76 armored vehicles sent by Gulf states to Iraq By Abdelhak Mamoun - Oct 8, 2015 (IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – The chairman of the national coalition, Iyad Allawi, announced on Wednesday the “disappearance” of 76 armored vehicles sent by Gulf countries to Iraq at his request. Allawi said during his speech for the TV program “unexpected,” aired on Alsumaria TV: “I asked one of the Gulf states to supply Iraq with weapons to confront ISIS,” noting that “This county sent 76 armored vehicles via aircraft and not the sea. ” Allawi added that “after a period of...

PRESTON — The Preston Police Department acquired a Mine Resistance Ambush Protected Personnel Carrier (MRAP) from the United States Army within the past week. The military has chosen to make equipment available to law enforcement agencies to increase domestic security in our country. MRAP’s are armored fighting vehicles are designed for the purpose of surviving attacks and ambushes, including mines explosions. Preston Police department applied for the vehicle in early spring of this year. The Preston City Council considered the proposal and possible benefits to our city and the surrounding communities and approved the acquisition. The vehicle comes at no...

The UK has exported hazardous chemicals to Syria, despite condemning President Bashar al-Assad. Photograph: Foto Factory/ Alany [photo at URL]. On the face of it, andin light of the widespread condemnation of President Bashar al-Assad it might seemodd that the UK is still granting licenses for the export of armoured 4x4 vehicles to Syria. Odder still...the sale of certain hazardous chemicals to Syria, too... ...

There used to be a basic distinction between military and humanitarian aid. Military aid meant weapons. Humanitarian aid meant medical and food supplies. Nonlethal aid blends the two together by combining medical supplies with military gear into something that is military aid, but pretends not to be. Nonlethal aid is not humanitarian aid. It’s military aid that you give to enemy forces that you want to see win, but whom you don’t trust. It’s military aid that bypasses international blocks on military aid. Nonlethal aid is dishonest. It tries to make military aid sound humanitarian by emphasizing defense rather...

More to the point; why isn't anyone in Congress asking? You see a story like this - and the one about a billion bullets bought by the government - and you wonder why no one in Congress has bothered to look into it. I am totally unconvinced there are any dark designs by DHS on American citizens or our democracy. But this seems a colossal waste of money - if true - and isn't ferreting out waste like this what we are paying those jamokes on Capitol Hill for? Jim Hoft writes: Modern Survival Blog reported: The Department of Homeland...

7 Most Incredible Tank Graveyards on Earth In certain corners of the globe you'll find the strangest of military cemeteries – places filled not with the bodies of fallen troops but littered with the carcasses of abandoned tanks. These once-formidable weapons of war no longer strike fear into the hearts of opposing forces; their days of rolling inexorably onwards on the teeth of steel tracks are over. Now, the armor of these behemoths is rusting and corroded, their hatches all but sealed from lack of use, and their controls never again to be manned by commanders in battle. WWII tank...

From old to new. As the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) recently announced, a joint programme with Turkey to refurbish ageing M60A1 main battle tanks has been completed this week. Within the framework of an agreement worth nearly $700 million and signed in March 2002, the programme has been carried out by the Turkish Defence Ministry and the Israeli companies, Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) and Elbit Systems. Since the beginning of the programme, some 170 40-year old M60A1’s, which are part of a significant fleet of tanks of this type bought from US surplus, have received extensive upgrades to the Sabra...

Defense Update magazine has published a news story about a new Marine Corps contract awarded to Navistar Defense, for the development and production of a lighter version of the MaxxPro Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) under a $752 million contract awarded last week by the US Marine Corps. The corps is the program manager for the development and procurement of the MRAP vehicles, built under an urgent requirement to protect troops in Iraq and Afghanistan from ambushes, improvised explosive devices (IED), mines and roadside bombs. The full story is available: HERE

A Ladson-based company’s new armored vehicles will protect U.S. troops from roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan.And the company will receive nearly $90 million in the process. The Department of Defense has hired Force Protection Inc. to build 122 Cougars, which can survive a blast from an improvised explosive device, said Michael Aldrich, Force Protection’s vice president for sales...Force Protection must complete the first order of 71 vehicles by May 2006. The company’s 240 employees can build 20 Cougars a month, Aldrich said. In combat, soldiers who specialize in disarming land mines and improvised explosive devices (called IEDs) will ride...

January 11, 2005: Israel has decided not to buy American Stryker wheeled armored vehicles for two of its infantry brigades. Instead, it has designed a new armored personnel carrier (APC) based on the chassis of older Merkava I and II series tanks. These tanks are being retired, and one such Merkava I is being turned into a prototype of the new “Nemerah” (“Tigress”) vehicle. This APC has the thick armor of the Merkava, but the turret is removed and a remotely controlled (from inside the vehicle) heavy machine-gun would be added. The Merkava lends itself to this kind of modification,...

WASHINGTON — The Army, beset with complaints that its troops are going into combat in inadequately armored Humvees, will send an older and less used class of armored personnel carriers to Iraq after spending $84 million to add armor to them. These vehicles, both veteran warhorses, are the M113/A3 armored personnel carrier and the M577 command post carrier. Both will be tougher and safer than newly armored Humvees. Army officials who pushed hard over the last two years for getting the M113 into duty in Iraq said it was more useful, cheaper and easier to transport than the Army's new...

Tacoma News Tribune December 22, 2003 Stryker Crews Find New Vehicles Can Take A Punch By Michael Gilbert, The News Tribune SAMARRA, Iraq - Like many soldiers in the Stryker brigade, the crew of Charlie 1-4 had their worries about how their vehicle would hold up if it were struck by a roadside bomb. Count them as big believers in the Stryker after their encounter with an improvised explosive device on a dirt street a week ago. "If it had been a Humvee, we'd all be dead," said Sgt. 1st Class Mike Farnum, the senior man aboard Charlie 1-4 when...