ABC, 13/09/2012
American Killed in Libya Was on Mission to Track Weapons
One of the Americans killed alongside Ambassador Christopher Stevens in an attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya Tuesday was working with the State Department on an intelligence mission to round up dangerous weapons .
Glen Doherty, former Navy SEAL, worked as a contractor with the State Department and went into the field to track down MANPADS, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, and destroy them. After the fall of dictator Gadhafi, the State Department launched a mission to round up thousands of MANPADS that may have been looted from military installations across the country. U.S. officials were concerned the MANPADS could fall into the hands of terrorists, creating a threat to commercial airliners.
An accidental explosion at a storage facility in western Turkey killed 25 soldiers and wounded four others, Turkish officials told the Anadolu news agency.
The blast occurred Wednesday evening in the province of Afyonkarahisar at the facility that stored hand grenades, military officials said, according ot Anadolu.
"I am satisfied that it is completely an accident. It has nothing to do with terrorism or sabotage from outside," Turkish Forestry Minister Veysel Eroglu told the news agency.
Reuters,Mon Mar 5, 2012
Blast at Brazzaville arms depot kills hundreds
Up to 200 people were killed on Sunday when an arms dump exploded in Brazzaville, ripping apart a nearby neighbourhood in the Congo Republic's capital. Hundreds of others were injured by the blasts which rocked the riverside capital around 8 a.m. (0700 GMT).
A government spokesman said that a short circuit was to blame for the fire that sparked the explosions and promised to move military barracks out of town as a result.
spiegelonline, 29AUG2012
World War II Bomb Detonated in Heart of Munich
Authorities detonated a World War II bomb in Munich on Tuesday night after efforts to defuse it were unsuccessful. Residents across the city heard the blast as windows shattered and several small fires started on area rooftops.
Unable to defuse a 250 kg bomb found buried one meter deep in the heart of the Bavarian capital, authorities elected to detonate the explosive on site. The controlled blast, finally carried out just before 10 p.m., sent a fireball into the night sky, shattered windows in the vicinity and resulted in several small fires on surrounding rooftops. Nobody was hurt.
New York Times, 1feb2012
The New York Times asks for readers’ help identifying a weapon found on the battlefields of Libya last year. They have spent considerable time identifying and sometimes tracing the tools of war in several recent conflicts back to their sources. But this time, they are stumped. The items in question are what ordnance professionals call submunitions, but are more widely known among lay readers as cluster bombs.
The photograph shows one found at the ruins of an arms depot a few miles outside of Mizdah, in the desert south of Tripoli.
photo by C. J. Chivers
