* Reuters: riots in Turkey kill 19 over failure to aid besieged Syrian Kurds. This conflict is getting increasingly regional.
* The Guardian describes the hi-tech media jihad conducted by ISIS:
“Isis’s global media operation appears to have two key objectives: to provoke the US and its allies, and to recruit from outside the Middle East. Both seem to be working.”
* Ahmad Abousamra, a dual American-Syrian citizen on the FBI’s most wanted terrorists list, may be [ABC News] one of the computer-savvy English-speaking people behind ISIS’ online propaganda.
* Al Jazeera reports how the town of Tuz Khurmatu in northern Iraq may have technically been “freed” from ISIS, but the extensive booby trapping they left behind has turned the place into a ghost town. And according to Iraq Oil Report Shia militia and Kurdish fighters clashed there just days ago.
* Australia was able to send its Super Hornets to provide air cover [Sydney Morning Herald] to local troops in Iraq thanks to closed-room cabinet decisions made back in 2006, reports News Ltd.
* France flew its 1st night mission above Iraq with 2 Rafales last week, with air refueling provided by one of their C135-FRs as well as a USAF KC10: MINDEF [in French], video.
America’s Global Role
* Louisiana’s Republican governor and potential presidential contender Bobby Jindal published a detailed justification [PDF] for the US to play a larger role in the world, supported by a larger military, to face a “myriad new threats.” What’s missing is any sense of which defense programs make sense and which don’t – noting deficiencies isn’t the same as proposing serious fixes, though the suggestion to simply remove many of the current Byzantine lines of authority over procurement programs would help.
Airbus and Its Pieces
* Fairmont Consulting Group offers a good cheat sheet [PDF] on Airbus’ divestiture plans: “We Make It Fly”… Pending Divestitures.
Europe
* 8 NATO countries recently joined 12,000 Polish soldiers in Poland for the Anaconda 2014 exercise [Polskie Radio]. Video below:
