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Since they began their blitz just over a fortnight ago, Sunni insurgents in Iraq have destroyed half of the Iraqi army and inflicted $10 billion in losses, a senior Iraqi defense official said. Those losses continued to mount Wednesday as the jihadi-led insurgents reportedly overran the Ajeel oil site east of the captured city of Tikrit, and Iraqi television showed helicopters flying in troops as fighting continued for Baiji, the country’s largest oil refinery.

The New York Times reported that Tehran is supplying Maliki with tons of military equipment every day, and that the very powerful commander of Iran’s elite Quds force, Qassem Soleimani, has been in Iraq to coordinate the fight against insurgents, who are led by the jihadi Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The Iraqi defense official told Rudaw, on condition of anonymity, that his ministry had assessed its losses in a report. “The damage to the Iraqi army is estimated to be more than $10 billion, not taking into account the hundreds of army officers lost. So far, seven military divisions have been destroyed,” he quoted the report as saying. Iraq reportedly has about 14 army divisions, which would mean that half have been destroyed.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Internet of Things (IoT) — so-called “smart” devices, vehicles, and appliances which employ various computer technologies — may be used to spy and keep tabs on people in the future. “In the future, intelligence services might use the IoT for identification, surveillance, monitoring, location tracking, and targeting for recruitment, or to gain access to networks or user credentials,” Clapper’s prepared testimony claimed. Though his remarks were ostensibly, and not surprisingly, directed toward the fight against ‘terrorism,’ the potential implications for all civilians cannot be ignored — particularly considering the IoT comprises everything from smart cars and fitness tracking devices to televisions and Barbie dolls. Clapper warns the threat from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and such non-state actors as ISIL and al-Qaeda. can be expected in the form of cyber attacks, gathering information about individuals, and even psy-ops, which make the IoT vulnerable to malicious intent — and ideal for U.S. intelligence-gathering purposes. “Future cyber operations will almost certainly include an increased emphasis on changing or manipulating data to compromise its integrity (i.e., accuracy and reliability) … Broader adoption of IoT devices and AI [artificial intelligence] — in settings such as public utilities and health care — will only exacerbate these potential effects,” said Clapper.

No matter the possible veracity in concerns of National Intelligence, the agency’s desire to thwart terrorism with an exponential increase in surveillance should be disquieting to all civilians wishing to maintain a modicum of privacy. As researchers with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard warned in their recent report, Don’t Panic: “The Internet of Things promises a new frontier for networking objects, machines, and environments in ways that we [are] just beginning to understand. When, say, a television has a microphone and a network connection, and is reprogrammable by its vendor, it could be used to listen in to one side of a telephone conversation taking place in its room — no matter how encrypted the telephone service itself might be. These forces are on a trajectory towards a future with more opportunities for surveillance.” In fact, the Nest is a home automation producer of programmable, self-learning, sensor-driven, Wi-Fi-enabled thermostats, smoke detectors, and other security systems. It’s also one of the devices can be used to spy on people in their homes. Clapper’s testimony carefully constructs a potential legal justification for expanding surveillance via, say, your dishwasher, in his assertion that homegrown violent extremists — who have now earned an acronym, HVEs — present the greatest looming threat inside the United States. According to his remarks:

t the end of a meeting of the Ministers for Defence of the European Union, the General Secretary of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, who had been «invited», gave a Press briefing [1].

Responding to a question from Reuters, Mr. Stoltenberg indicated that NATO would deploy AWACS to improve the Coalition’s view of the sky. However, Syrian air-space is legally used only by Syria and Russia, and illegally by the Coalition and Israël. The rebel or terrorist armies have no air force. It seems that NATO intends to test the methods of aerial surveillance which still function despite the deployment of the Russian system for disconnecting the Alliance’s command and control.

Saudi Arabia is ramping up its supplies of lethal weaponry to three different rebel groups in Syria in response to the Russian airstrikes on Syrian rebels, British media reported, citing a Saudi government official in Riyadh. The official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, said supplies of modern, high-powered weaponry including guided anti-tank weapons would be increased to the Arab-and Western-backed rebel groups fighting the forces of Syria's President Bashar Assad, the BBC reported on Friday. He did not rule out supplying surface-to-air missiles to the rebels, a move resisted by many in the West for fear that they would fall into the hands of ISIL and end up being used to shoot down warplanes of the US-led coalition or even civilian airliners. He said the weapons would go to three rebel alliances — Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), the so-caled Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Southern Front.

On October 2 the United States and its allies — Britain, France, Germany, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia — urged Russia to end its airstrikes against the forces of the so-called “moderate opposition” in Syria, warning this would further escalate the conflict and lead to a new weave of extremism and radicalism in the war-torn country.

Syria's foreign minister said U.S.-led air strikes had failed to weaken Islamic State it in Syria and the jihadist group would not be tackled unless Turkey was forced to tighten border controls. A U.S.-led alliance started attacking Islamic State targets in Syria in September as part of a wider effort to destroy the al Qaeda offshoot that has seized large areas of the country and neighboring Iraq. "All the indications say that (Islamic State) today, after two months of coalition air strikes, is not weaker," Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said in an interview with the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen TV broadcast on Friday.The Syrian government has said it was willing to join the fight against Islamic State, but the United States refuses to deal with President Bashar al-Assad, who it says has lost legitimacy and must leave power.