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Drone footage shows destruction of Zabadani from Syria's war

Al Jazeera

Exclusive drone footage reveals the extensive destruction in Zabadani, a city near Damascus, which endured heavy shelling from Bashar al-Assad's forces during Syria's war.


The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Military Intelligence: An Experimental Investigation of Added Value in the Analysis Process

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

It is beyond dispute that the potential benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) in military intelligence are considerable. Nevertheless, it remains uncertain precisely how AI can enhance the analysis of military data. The aim of this study is to address this issue. To this end, the AI demonstrator deepCOM was developed in collaboration with the start-up Aleph Alpha. The AI functions include text search, automatic text summarization and Named Entity Recognition (NER). These are evaluated for their added value in military analysis. It is demonstrated that under time pressure, the utilization of AI functions results in assessments clearly superior to that of the control group. Nevertheless, despite the demonstrably superior analysis outcome in the experimental group, no increase in confidence in the accuracy of their own analyses was observed. Finally, the paper identifies the limitations of employing AI in military intelligence, particularly in the context of analyzing ambiguous and contradictory information.


Deadly drone attack hits training ground at Syrian base housing US troops

FOX News

Former Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller joined'Fox & Friends' to discuss the latest on the escalation in the Middle East as the U.S. continues to strike Iranian proxies. A drone attack late Sunday evening that struck a military base in eastern Syria, where U.S. troops are stationed, left at least six allied Kurdish soldiers dead, officials said. The attack hit a training ground at al-Omar base in Syria's eastern province of Deir el-Zour, the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said in a statement Monday. According to the statement, the drone attack struck an area where the forces' commando units were being trained. No U.S. troops were killed or injured in the attack, they said.


Syria Drone Attack Kills at Least 80, Government Says

NYT > Middle East

The United States has hundreds of soldiers in Syria, mostly in the northeast, part of its mission to fight the remnants of the Islamic State alongside its ally, Kurdish-led forces. The Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad has long demanded that the United States withdraw from all parts of Syria. The Syrian Army's general command said it "considers this cowardly terrorist act an unprecedented criminal act and affirms that it will respond with full force and decisiveness to these terrorist organizations wherever they are found," according to the Syrian state media. Syrian government forces carried out artillery and missile attacks after the drone strike on Thursday, targeting several towns in the country's northwestern Idlib Province and killing at least eight people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. That part of the country is under the control of armed groups not backed by the United States.


Syria mourns dozens of people killed in Homs drone attack

Al Jazeera

Syrians have begun burying the dozens of people killed in a large-scale drone attack on a military academy in the western city of Homs. Coffins draped in Syrian flags on Friday lined the streets outside the Homs military hospital as a military band played somber music and soldiers saluted. On Thursday, several drones attacked a graduation ceremony in the academy's courtyard, where families had gathered with the new officers. Syria's Ministry of Health said at least 89 people had been killed, including 31 women and five children. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict, put the toll at above 120.


Drone attack on Syrian military academy in Homs leaves at least 7 dead: report

FOX News

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. At least seven people have reportedly been killed in Syria Thursday after a drone attack targeted a military academy graduation ceremony in Homs. "Seven dead and more than 20 regime officers wounded in a violent explosion in the area of the military academy in Homs, caused by an attack by drones during a graduation ceremony," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, according to the AFP. The source of the attack is unclear.


Google's AI system won't answer negative questions about Vladimir Putin asked in Russian - but gladly makes argument about Trump being racist

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Google's mission statement is to make the'world's information universally accessible' - but that hasn't stopped it from self-censoring to avoid offending Russia. A new study has shown the search giant's artificial intelligence chatbot, Bard, mostly refuses to answer critical questions about Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, it won't answer 90 percent of queries regardless of how offensive or inoffensive they are. One of the two researchers in Switzerland who did the test believe Google is being'pushed' by the Kremlin to censor anything critical about the Russian regime. Google's artificial intelligence chatbot, Bard, mostly refuses to answer critical questions about Russian President Vladimir Putin Mykola Makhortykh, a post-doctoral lecturer at the University of Bern and one of the researchers, told DailyMail.com: 'My personal opinion is that Google might have been pushed by the Russian government to censor some of the results which were critical to the Kremlin similar to how it was done by Yandex.'


US says it killed ISIL leader Osama al-Muhajer in drone strike

Al Jazeera

The United States military says it has killed a leader of the ISIL (ISIS) group in eastern Syria in a drone strike. The strike on Friday resulted in the death of Osama al-Muhajer, the US Central Command said in a statement on Sunday. "We have made it clear that we remain committed to the defeat of ISIS throughout the region," US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief General Michael Kurilla said, using another acronym for the ISIL armed group. "ISIS remains a threat, not only to the region but well beyond," he added. According to CENTCOM, no civilians were killed in the operation but coalition forces are "assessing reports of a civilian injury".


Pro-Iranian forces in Syria warn US of response to air strikes

Al Jazeera

Pro-Iranian forces in Syria have said they have a "long arm" to respond to further United States air strikes on their positions, after tit-for-tat missile and drone attacks in Syria over the last 24 hours. The online statement, released late on Friday and signed by the Iranian Advisory Committee in Syria, said US air strikes had left several of their fighters dead and wounded, without specifying the fighters' nationality. "We have the capability to respond if our centres and forces in Syria are targeted," the statement said. On Friday night, two Syrian opposition activist groups reported a new wave of US air attacks on eastern Syria, which hit positions of Iran-backed militias, after rockets were fired at bases in Syria housing US troops. Several US officials, however, denied that attacks were launched late on Friday.


Explosion in Syria kills at least 3, likely caused by drone strike targeting militiamen

FOX News

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. An explosion in eastern Syria on Wednesday killed at least three people, according to reports. A war monitoring group said the blast was likely caused by a drone strike that targeted Iran-backed militiamen. No group claimed responsibility for an attack in the area and reports about what had happened were sketchy.