A bit of Viktor Bout news. It looks like, according to AFP, that the Americans are planning to deploy B. Hussein Stalinhitler himself, when the President is in that part of the world next month. I can remember when “someone high up in the contracting world” actively wanted to encourage him, in support of a “network of friendly militias”.
Relatedly, the Federation of American Scientists’ Security blog has published documents of the US case against him. I have to say that I’m underwhelmed; most of it looks like vague scrawl, and the maps and aircraft documents involved are generic to say the least.
This chap’s loadmaster trip strongly suggests that quite a lot of the scene has moved down the road to Fujairah, and that the UAE ban on Antonov 12s is far from leakproof. (Why do I always end up parsing more Web pages?)
But, on the other hand….ROARING TRIUMPH! And again! I never imagined they’d catch up with Pierre Falcone, still less that Charles Pasqua would be convicted of anything, but the first got six years and the second one. I’d bet good money Pasqua won’t do any time, but still.
From the loadmaster’s log, it’s interesting to see that the Oman Air Force Skyvans are still flying considering the rugged conditions in which they operate. They were reasonably venerable when I was an ops officer at Seeb in 1984-86