Only nine of Turkey’s original 50-member delegation to NATO remain in place in Brussels following a Sept. 27 mass firing of the country’s top foreign service officials over suspicion of their involvement in this summer’s attempted coup, Reuters reported Wednesday. Some of the 140 total official targeted have concluded that the move is a “witch-hunt” in part motivated by Turkey’s desire to strengthen ties with NATO’s Cold War adversary Russia in the wake of the failed coup. Not all those recalled have returned to Turkey, but those who did have been met with dismissal from their posts and jailing. Those who have failed to return have been faced with the revocation of their passports, the freezing of their bank accounts, and the arrest of their family members residing in Turkey. The US military recently ended family-accompanied deployments to Turkey citing security concerns after the July coup.
SOCOM Selects 5 Armed Overwatch Prototypes
May 17, 2021
U.S. Special Operations Command has awarded a total of $19.2 million to five companies for prototype demonstrations as part of the Armed Overwatch effort to buy a low-cost aircraft to fly surveillance and strikes in austere locations. The aircraft selected to proceed are: Leidos Inc.’s Bronco II, MAG Aerospace’s MC-208…