The Global War on Terror is making the world a safer place, despite the more than 11,000 terrorist attacks recorded worldwide last year that killed 14,602 people, according to the US State Department, which released its annual Country Reports on Terrorism on April 28. (Click on the graphic at right for a summary of 2005 statistics.) Among State’s conclusions, “Al Qaeda is “not the organization it was four years ago,” but the terrorist group “remains adaptive and resilient.” State attributes a “sharp rise” in the number of 2005 terrorist incidents compared to 2004 (some 3,000) to the “broader statutory definition of terrorism” required by Congress. (The report is here; State’s briefing on the report is here.)
A new Navy missile could fill a long-range air-to-air need for the U.S. Air Force’s fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-generation fighters. The Navy’s portfolio acquisition executive for munitions posted information on the AIM-424 Long Range Air-to-Air Missile online on Aug. 22, the same day it unveiled the project at the service’s…