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Iran is sending Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro’s socialist regime weapons and troops, a top U.S. military official told the Wall Street Journal Wednesday. “We see a growing Iranian influence in there,” the head of the U.S. Southern Command, Admiral Craig Faller, told the Journal. “We’re real [sic] concerned about what Iran is up to, not just globally, but here in this hemisphere.” He went on to cite the “alarming and concerning” arrival of military personnel from the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), notorious for its terrorist activities in other countries including Syria and Iraq. Faller...

Last month the head of the U.S. Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs, Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe said that the U.S. Navy is on track to field a hypersonic missile on its submarine fleet by 2025. The weapons, which will be used as a conventional prompt strike (CPS) alternative to long-range nuclear weapons has been called a high priority for the Navy. Wolfe who spoke at the Naval Submarine League annual symposium last month, as reported by USNI News, said that challenges remain. To meet the goal, the U.S. military along with government agencies and private industry, must “take all the successes...

On Thursday the United States revealed it had previously seized a major shipment of Iranian missiles bound for Yemen, and separately that it seized and later sold 1.1 million barrels of Iranian fuel bound for Venezuela. Reports describe the seizer was accomplished by two US warships in regional waters that apprehended a total of 171 guided anti-tank missiles, eight surface-to-air missiles, and associated equipment, according to a statement by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers. "These actions represent the government’s largest-ever forfeitures actions for fuel and weapons shipments from Iran," the Justice Department said. Also on Thursday...

Former CIA operative arrested in Honolulu, charged with helping China spy on U.S. [Video] HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) -- A Honolulu resident who spent years working for the Central Intelligence Agency and as a contractor for the Federal Bureau of Investigation was charged Monday with spying on the U,S, and selling state secrets to China. Authorities say 67-year-old Alexander Yuk Ching Ma -- who moved to Honolulu from Hong Kong in 1968 and began his CIA career in 1982 -- had become ‘a compromised asset’ of the Chinese Ministry of State Security by at least early 2001. In a press conference...

Following the end on the 18th of October of the 13-year United Nations’ embargo on Iran buying or selling weapons, the roll-out of the military component of the 25-year deal between China and Iran will begin in November, as exclusively revealed by Oil Price.com. After a series of meetings in China on the 9th and 10th of October between Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Zarif, and his China counterpart, Wang Yi, this military component may now also feature the deployment in Iran of North Korean weaponry and technology, in exchange for oil, according to sources very close to the Iranian government...

Russia's ambassador to Iran has said Moscow will consider selling its advanced S-400 anti-aircraft missile system to Tehran, despite U.S. objections and threats. Ambassador Levan Jagarian told the Resalat daily newspaper Sunday that Russia would have "no problem" selling S-400 systems to Iran when the United Nation arms embargo on the country expires on October 18, Iran's Tasnim News Agency reported. "We are not afraid of U.S. threats and we will live up to our commitments," Jagarian said, explaining that Russia will properly consider Iranian arms requests despite continued pressure from the U.S. for nations to further isolate Tehran. President...

“Goods were being transported from one country to another, and they ended up in a third country with nobody owning the goods. Why did they end up here?” said Ghassan Hasbani, a former Lebanese deputy prime minister and opposition figure. Those linked to the shipment and interviewed by Reuters all denied knowledge of the cargo’s original owner or declined to answer the question. Those who said they didn’t know included the ship’s captain, the Georgian fertilizer maker who produced the cargo and the African firm that ordered it but said it never paid for it.

WASHINGTON - The United States has filed a complaint to forfeit $2,372,793 associated with four companies, announced the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Michael R. Sherwin, Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Chicago Field Office, and Steven Cagen, Special Agent in Charge of the HSI Denver Field Office.            The complaint alleges that the four companies laundered United States dollars on behalf of sanctioned North Korean banks.  According to the complaint, the North Korean banks used these laundered funds as part of a scheme to procure goods for...

A contractor who was working at a Florida airport opened up a container to find a live missile. The shocking find happened on Friday afternoon at Lakeland Linder International Airport east of Tampa. It's not known how the missile arrived at the airport which is mainly used for private jets and no longer for any kind of military use.

The method prosecutors said they used to get Alexander Yuk Ching Ma to reveal the nature of his espionage was worthy of a spy novel itself. A 15-year veteran of the CIA was charged Monday with selling U.S. secrets to China then unwittingly admitting his spying to the FBI. The method prosecutors said they used to get him to reveal the nature of his espionage was worthy of a spy novel itself. Court documents said 67-year-old Alexander Yuk Ching Ma of Honolulu was charged with violating U.S. espionage laws. Prosecutors said he joined the CIA in 1967 then served as...

Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted Sunday of nearing deployment of nuclear-tipped hypersonic missiles with his Navy, upping the ante in a three-way arms race with the U.S. and China to develop super-fast missiles that can penetrate any existing defensive system. At the annual naval parade in St. Petersburg, Putin did not detail specifically when hypersonic missiles would be deployed, but the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the weapons are in the final stages of testing. "The widespread deployment of advanced digital technologies that have no equals in the world, including hypersonic strike systems and underwater drones, will give the...

New Delhi: Indian defence forces have deployed their advanced “quick-reaction surface-to-air missile defence systems” in the Eastern Ladakh sector after PLA air force increased its air activity near LAC in Ladakh and Chinese aircraft were seen last week landing in a Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) airbase. The air defence systems of both Indian Army and the Indian Air Force have been deployed in Ladakh to take on any aerial threat. India has also filled the surveillance gaps to ensure that no enemy aircraft would be able to go undetected. Indian quick reaction air defence missile includes the Akash missile which...

A Chinese People’s Liberation Army warplane briefly approached Taiwan on Friday, a day after the island test-fired two missiles off its coast amid rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait. The PLA Yun-8 transport plane crossed the median line in the strait on Friday, crossing the unofficial airspace boundary between the two parties. Taiwan’s defence ministry said it responded by scrambling jet fighters. “We detected the Chinese Communist Yun-8 aircraft flying southwest into Taiwan this morning and immediately dispatched our fighter jets to shadow it and disperse through radio warning,” the ministry said. Describing the situation as “normal”, the ministry said...

A US surveillance aircraft has flown over South Korea, an aviation tracker said Wednesday, on an apparent mission to monitor North Korea just days after the communist nation fired what are believed to be two short-range ballistic missiles. The US Navy's EP-3E was spotted in skies above South Korea on Tuesday, Aircraft Spots tweeted. The operation came two days after North Korea fired two projectiles from the eastern coastal city of Wonsan toward the East Sea, marking the fourth major weapons test the North has conducted this year. The United States flew the same type of plane over the peninsula...

Gulftainer is a Middle-Eastern based ports management company that operates Delaware’s Port of Wilmington. The Obama administration brought Gulftainer into the United States with its first lease at Florida’s Port Canaveral, bypassing the required CFIUS National Security Threat Analysis. Gulftainer illegally blocked Wawa from its fuel supplies at the tank farm adjacent to the Port of Wilmington. Wawa is a Pennsylvania-based chain of convenience store gas stations with nearly 900 locations on the East Coast of the United States. Gulftainer attempted to extort $1 million in “fees” in exchange for allowing the Wawa tanker trucks to access their own fuel...

Foreign powers test US defenses amid coronavirus pandemic BY ELLEN MITCHELL - 04/19/20 08:00 AM EDT U.S. adversaries are probing America's defenses as the world is preoccupied with the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. In the past two weeks, Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have all moved to test Washington in the sea, in the air and on land as U.S. forces have become more restricted in movement amid concerns over the spread of COVID-19. “Exactly how distracted is the U.S. military? They want to know,” said Susanna Blume, the director of the defense program at the Center for...

These facts cannot be disputed: 1. Former Vice President Joe Biden admitted and bragged on TV that he threatened to withhold one billion dollars in American foreign aid to Ukraine if Ukraine did not fire the prosecutor investigating Burisma. Burisma was paying Hunter Biden, son of the Joe Biden, over $50,000 per month as a board member of Burisma. There is no dirt to dig up. Joe Biden admitted to the dirt. 2. The Obama-Biden administration did not supply military aid to Ukraine when Ukraine needed the aid against Russia. This was admitted by the acting ambassador to the Ukraine,...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was among the targets of an investigation in Turkey into suspected bribery and money laundering in connection with a scheme to help Iran evade sanctions, a former Istanbul police officer has testified. The officer, Huseyin Korkmaz, told a New York court on December 11 that the Turkish investigation that he led in 2012-2013 initially focused on Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, who U.S. prosecutors have said was the mastermind behind the Iran sanctions evasion scheme, but later grew to include dozens of others. He called Erdogan the "No. 1" target in a group that also included...

It’s the punch you don’t see coming, goes the boxer’s adage, that knocks you out. Hypersonic missiles are that latest military punch. Fast, yes. But more importantly, unpredictable, slipping past the digital eyes of military tech that watches for ballistic haymakers swinging out into space, not for glide vehicles skipping along the edge of the atmosphere. Pentagon officials said on March 2 they are setting up a “hypersonic war room” to ensure that the U.S. industrial base is up to the task. The same day, the Secretary of the Army said they will test-fire two missiles this year as the...

Turkey's leaders have called Israel the "West's spoiled child," and the "bully" of the eastern Mediterranean. When a Tel Aviv soccer team showed up in Istanbul recently for a match, the welcome was less than warm. In September, Turkey kicked out the Israeli ambassador, suspended military and trade deals and threatened legal and naval action to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. As roars of approval went up around the Arab world, few noticed another announcement quietly slipped in by Ankara: Turkey had signed off on a plan to host an American X-band radar system as part of a...