Free Republic

A mystery plane crashed Monday in Taliban-held territory in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, south of the capital, Afghan officials said. It was not immediately clear how many people were on board the plane. Ariana Afghan Airlines denied reports that it was one of its passenger jets that had come down. Provincial government spokesman Arif Noori told CBS News’ Ahmad Mukhtar the plane appeared to have been a flight between the southern city of Kandahar and the capital Kabul, about 200 miles to the north. Ghazni province is between those two locations Noori said the body of two pilots was found at...

The U.S. Air Force is considering deploying an up-to-date airborne communications network system in South Korea in an effort to boost its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities against North Korean threats, the top American airman here said Friday. In a speech at a security conference in Seoul, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Remington, commander of the 7th Air Force, said his command is exploring the deployment of the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) in the Korean theater, as the network system's effectiveness has been proven in Afghanistan. BACN is an airborne communications relay and gateway that enables real-time information flow between different...