Pentagon sending 'floating base' to Mideast

The Pentagon is rushing to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East as tensions rise with Iran, al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somali pirates, among other threats.

In response to requests from the U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, the Navy is converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a makeshift staging base for the commandos. Unofficially dubbed a “mothership,” the floating base could accommodate smaller high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEALs, procurement documents show.

Navy officials acknowledged that they were moving with unusual haste to complete the conversion and send the mothership to the region by early summer.


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Car bomb kills dozens in Baghdad

A suicide car bomber targeted a Shiite funeral procession in the Iraqi capital Friday, killing 31 people and wounding 60 others, two police officials said.

The blast occurred as mourners passed by an outdoor market and headed toward a hospital in Baghdad's Zafarniya district to recover the bodies of three relatives shot the night before in the western part of the city, the officials said.

The police officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details to the media.

The bombing is the latest in a series of attacks in the nation that have killed more than 200 people this year. They occurred amid a political crisis raising fears of a return to the sectarian violence of last decade -- the Sunni-Shiite hostilities that engulfed Iraq at the height of the war.

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Iran Dispatches Hezbollah Terror Cells To Attack

Iran is taking several steps to help Syria’s beleaguered President Bashar Assad, assassinate opposition figures and attack Israeli and American interests worldwide, sources have confirmed.

After the recent assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, deputy director of the first uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered retaliation.

He instructed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the chief commander of the Quds Forces, to prepare the ground for terrorist attacks, first to retaliate against assassination and espionage within the Iranian nuclear program, and second, to go on the offensive to make the West understand that any military action against Iran will create much instability in the world.

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Former IDF Chief: Israel Must Prepare For War

Former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi warned, Thursday, that Israel could not afford to cut its defense budget and should prepare itself for war.

“In comparison to 10 years ago, the possibility of a conflict is not something that we just need to talk about," Ashkenazi said during a lecture at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

"I believe Iran would be making a strategic mistake if it blocks the Strait of Hormuz. Another mistake was trying to kill the Saudi ambassador at a restaurant in the US capital. The Iranians are liable to make more mistakes under pressure," he said.

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Palestinians: Peace negotiations with Israel have ended

The time frame that the Palestinians have allowed for talks with Israel in Amman under Jordanian auspices expires on Thursday.

According to diplomatic sources associated with the Middle East Quartet - the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia - last-minute efforts are underway to head off the talks' collapse, but the prospects seem slim.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's representative to the Amman talks, Isaac Molho, met on Wednesday in the Jordanian capital for a fifth time with the head of the Palestinian negotiating team Saeb Erekat - but at this point no formula has been reached that would enable the talks to continue.

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Is a Super-Volcano in Germany ready to Erupt?

A sleeping super-volcano in Germany is showing worrying signs of waking up.

It's lurking just 390 miles away underneath the tranquil Laacher See lake near Bonn and is capable of ejecting billions of tons of magma.

Experts believe that if it did go off, it could lead to widespread devastation, mass evacuations and even short-term global cooling from the resulting ash cloud blocking the sun.

The effect on the UK is hard to predict but it’s possible that large parts of southern England could be covered ash.

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