Who is the Afghan Revolutionary Front?

ARF? Ok, obviously they aren’t directed at the English-speaking world. The Animal Rescue Foundation can get away with it, but…whatever.

The Afghan Revolutionary Front claimed responsibility for a bomb scare in Paris this morning. The sticks of dynamite, no detonator, were found in a restroom in the Paris’s Printemps Haussmann department store along with a note, according to France24.

“Send the message to your president that he must withdraw his troops from our country before the end of February 2009 or else we will take action in your capitalist department stores and this time, without warning,” the letter said.

No one has heard of ARF prior to this event. In fact searches of Altavista and Yahoo return no results. Google, which is slightly faster, links only to news reports of this incident.

France is increasing it’s role in Afghanistan, hosting a conference earlier this week between Afghanistan and its neighbors to discuss some regional security issues.

UPDATE: 7 individuals with ties to ‘known Islamic Extremist groups’ have been arrested. However, France24 is reporting they are not connected to the explosives incident. Guess it was just a ‘usual suspects’ arrest.

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Homemade 'Predator' drone UAV discovered on Long Island

Dont try this at home

Don't try this at home

Police and FBI officials are trying to get to the bottom of a homemade ‘Predator’-like drone they found in Long Island being tested by some fellows in the late of the night. WNBC is breaking this story about the unlicensed UAV (which doesn’t really look like a Predator to be honest) and how it could have carried 800lbs of explosives and was being designed by an Egyptian who entered the US on a Sudanese passport (red flags all around). Some of these facts may eventually change (i.e. a real Predator only carried 450lbs as a payload).

With a GPS interface to a remote control plane, making a ‘homemade cruise missile’ should not be all that difficult. I’ve often wondered if the GPS coordinates around the White House and other sensitive locations are intentionally scrambled to prevent against this sort of thing. It would seem even a person with simple R/C aircraft skills and computer programming could whip something together in no time flat. It does seem that Homeland Security has been studying this threat.

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