The Great Swedish Sub Hunt is over.

Nearly a week after a potential Russian submarine was spotted in the Stockholm Archipelago, the Swedish authorities are calling off their search, ending a saga in which the Scandinavian country's anxieties towards Russia were clearly on display.

It's not that the Swedes were chasing something that wasn't there. Throughout the effort, Swedish military officials expressed utter certainty that a foreign vessel had violated its territorial waters, with the country's top military commander going as far as to call the situation "f--ed up."

The search's inevitably fruitless conclusion owes more to the simple fact that locating and capturing an enemy submarine is one of the most difficult battlefield feats of all. Sweden predictably came up empty-handed. But the incident is significant even in spite of its inconclusive ending — and even though the Swedes never even discovered what kind of vessel they were actually hunting, never mind its purpose or destination.

Russia Dodges A Bullet

Let's assume the Swedes were actually hunting a Russian submarine, something they never said explicitly but which anonymous Swedish officials strongly implied.

In recent months, Russia has tested the sovereignty of a number of its neighbors and geopolitical rivals. It's abducted an Estonian intelligence agent and had its ships interfere with the mission of a Finnish research vessel in international waters. Its jets have gotten into unusually tense confrontations with the American, Estonian, and even Japanese militaries.

These incidents led to varying levels of alarm. But the Swedish Sub Hunt was the Scandinavian country's largest mobilization since the Cold War. It was a tangible, full-scale military reaction to a possible Russian violation of a European nation's sovereignty.

And if the Swedes had actually captured the sub, the anti-Putin block would have had invaluable and even unprecedented pieces of leverage over Moscow. It may have captured high-ranking Russian military or intelligence personnel, along with whatever equipment or information was onboard.

And it would have proven beyond all doubt that Russia is recklessly violating the sovereignty of a European state that it does not even border.

A Possible Win For Putin?

But the sub hunt didn't end in embarrassment for the Kremlin. If anything it revealed the degree to which certain European countries have internalized the threat that they believe Moscow may pose to them.

Sweden is so jittery about Russian policy that even the mere possibility of a foreign submarine in its waters was enough to trigger a week-long search. There's no proof that what they were hunting was Russian and little concrete proof that what they were searching for was even a submarine. But Putin is responsible for the anxieties that obviously underlie the entire incident.

Putin can get European military commanders sputtering expletives simply by seeming to violate their country's territory. Even Reuters began referring to Swedish efforts to locate the sub as "farce," given the gap between Swedish concerns and actual evidence or progress in the search. As a psychological operation, the Swedish Sub Hunt may have been an unintended masterstroke.

How Long Can He Keep It Up?

Putin has had an uncanny ability to turn potentially crushing defeats into tangible victories — or at least to impose his will in a way that reverses earlier setbacks.

Putin countered the overthrow of Kremlin client Viktor Yanukovych from the Ukrainian presidency this past February by invading and annexing Crimea. The shoot-down of MH17 by Russian-backed separatists with Russian-supplied weaponry earned Moscow international scorn but it didn't stop Putin from sending a 5,000-strong invasion force to Eastern Ukraine. A largely pro-western leader was elected to power in Kiev over the summer, but Putin responded by turning the Donbas into his latest "frozen conflict."

The Swedish sub hunt is a microcosm of this larger pattern. A possible setback turned to Moscow's advantage. But it only happened by luck this time and the Kremlin's winning streak doesn't have to last indefinitely. One of Putin's gambits could boomerang back on him — even if that hasn't seemed to happen yet.

SEE ALSO: THE EUROPEAN CHESSBOARD: Here's a map of the confrontation between the US and NATO

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Tehran (AFP) - Iran executed Saturday a 26-year-old woman who had spent five years on death row for the murder of a former intelligence official, defying international pressure to spare her life.

Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged at dawn, the official IRNA news agency quoted the Tehran prosecutor's office as saying.

A message posted on the homepage of a Facebook campaign that was set up to try to save her, but which now states "Rest in Peace," confirmed the report.

Amnesty International said in a statement issued late Friday that Jabbari, an interior designer, was due to be executed for the 2007 stabbing of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi.

A UN human rights monitor had said the killing of Sarbandi was an act of self-defence after he tried to sexually assault Jabbari, and that her trial in 2009 had been deeply flawed. In a statement on Saturday, the US State Department condemned the execution.

"There were serious concerns with the fairness of the trial and the circumstances surrounding this case, including reports of confessions made under severe duress," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

"Iranian authorities proceeded with this execution despite pleas from Iranian human rights activists and an international outcry over this case. We join our voice with those who call on Iran to respect the fair trial guarantees afforded to its people under Iran’s own laws and its international obligations."

Iranian actors and other prominent figures had appealed for a stay of execution, echoing similar calls in the West.

Efforts for clemency had intensified in recent weeks. Jabbari's mother was allowed to visit her for one hour on Friday, Amnesty said, a custom that tends to precede executions in Iran.

According to the United Nations, more than 250 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2014.

The UN and international rights groups had said Jabbari's confession was obtained under intense pressure and threats from Iranian prosecutors, and she should have had a retrial.

Ahmed Shaheed, the UN's human rights rapporteur on Iran, said in April that Sarbandi had offered to hire Jabbari to redesign his office and took her to an apartment where he sexually abused her.

However, Sarbandi's family insists that the murder was premeditated and that Jabbari had confessed to buying a knife two days before the killing.

According to Jalal Sarbandi, the victim's eldest son, Jabbari testified that a man was present in the apartment where his father was killed  "but she refuses to reveal his identity".

He told Shargh and Etemad, two of Iran's reformist daily newspapers, in April that his family "would not even contemplate mercy until truth is unearthed."

"Only when her true intentions are exposed and she tells the truth about her accomplice and what really went down will we be prepared to grant mercy," he said at the time.

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The demand for firearms is going up.

That's what gun-maker Smith & Wesson is telling its investors.

The company just published a new 46-slide presentation highlighting the health of the company and the industry.

It includes tons of information showing America's ever-increasing love for guns.

We pulled the most interesting slides.

The number of background checks for guns has trended higher in most of the last decade.

We just saw the second best May for background checks in history.

There's lots of interest for rifles and shotguns.

The US and partner nations conducted 22 airstrikes against targets held by the extremist group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq on Friday and Saturday, marking the most for a single 24-hour stretch since the US began airstrikes against the group in August.

US Central Command said Saturday that the US military and partner nations conducted the strikes in six different areas of Iraq against the group, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL. A breakdown:

• Three airstrikes near the northern city of Bayji, which is home to a large oil refinery, hit a large and small ISIS unit, destroyed an ISIS-held building, damaged another ISIS-held building, and destroyed two of the group's fighting positions.

• 11 strikes total near the key strategic Mosul Dam struck four small ISIS units, two large ISIS units, destroyed an ISIS building, six ISIS fighting positions, and four ISIS staging locations.

• Four airstrikes near the city of Fallujah hit two small ISIS units, destroyed an ISIS vehicle, and destroyed an ISIS fighting position.

• Two strikes near Qurayat al Hajjaj struck a small ISIS unit and destroyed an ISIS building.

• One strike near Hayy Al Arabi destroyed an ISIS building.

• One strike near Aynzalah destroyed an ISIS building.

Central Command said all aircraft exited the areas safely. 

The US also conducted an airstrike in Syria on Saturday, near the battle-heavy town of Kobani. Earlier this week, the US boosted Kurdish forces fighting ISIS militants in the key town on the Syria-Turkey border, resupplying them with weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies.

Combined, the 23 airstrikes in total were the most since late last month, shortly after airstrikes began against the group in Syria.

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The Mexican Drug War, launched in December 2006 by then-President Felipe Calderon, is approaching its eight-year mark.

The series of conflicts, which has pitted the Mexican military, cartels, vigilantes, and police forces against one another, has had a profound effect upon Mexico. It killed over 60,000 people between 2006 and 2012 but is far from over: In early October, 43 Mexican students vanished from Iguala, a town about halfway between Mexico City and the Pacific coast. The search for the missing students has so far been unsuccessful, although drug trafficking organizations were almost definitely involved and investigators have discovered freshly dug graves. 

The mass kidnapping came at the same time as a couple of high-profile busts. On October 1, Hector Beltran Leyva, leader of an eponymous cartel, was nabbed by the Mexican army in San Miguel de Allende. The head of the Juarez cartel was arrested just days later.

The drug war can be seen as the Mexican state's long-overdue effort to impose order on the country after decades in which the government tolerated or even coddled the cartels' activities. But the war has also pitted the major drug traffickers against each other in excessively violent struggles to maintain, or expand, their positions. 

Here are seven of the country's most notorious organizations, and where the last eight years of chaos have left them. 

The Sinaloa Cartel

The Sinaloa Cartel is the single largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in the Western hemisphere.

The Sinaloa is not a single hierarchical organization. Instead, it functions more as a confederacy of groups that are connected through blood, marriage, and regional relationships. Decisions for the group are ultimately made through board-of-directors-type mechanisms, and not by a single leader.

This operational flexibility has allowed the Sinaloa to continue to thrive despite several setbacks. In 2008, the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO), once a core component of the cartel, split from the group and began to wage war against it. And earlier this year, Chapo Guzman, the group's multi-billionaire architect and a criminal business visionary, was finally arrested in the coastal resort city of Mazatlan.

However, the Sinaloa made new alliances and continued to expand. 

Today, the Sinaloa are active in 17 Mexican states and throughout the US. They have connections that stretch to Australia as well.

The Sinaloa's success is allegedly due in part to the organization's history of preferential treatment at the hands of US's Drug Enforcement Administration and the Mexicans, who are accused of using the Sinaloa as a source of information or (even as a hands-off means of enforcement) against other, less pliable cartels. 

The Beltran Leyva Organization 

The BLO was originally formed by four brothers as part of the Sinaloa Cartel and consisted largely of poppy and marijuana growers. Over time, the BLO changed its modus operandi and became muscle for the Sinaloa against the Gulf Cartel and its former military wing, Los Zetas. 

In 2008, the Sinaloa and the BLO violent split. This conflict almost destroyed the BLO, as they were hounded by the Sinaloa, and had to deal with arrests of their leadership and in-fighting amongst the upper ranks of of the organization. This weakness led the BLO to form pragmatic alliances with Los Zetas, the Knights Templar, and the Juarez Cartel in an effort to strike back against the Sinaloa. 

The BLO is likely on the ropes. In October, Hector Beltran Leyva, the last of the original four BLO brothers, was arrested. 

The Juarez Cartel

The Juarez Cartel is one of the oldest surviving drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, with its roots reaching back to the 1980s. The group began its narcotics activities before moving into human trafficking, kidnapping, and extortion.

The wealth of the cartel was largely due to its control of the crucial border city of Juarez, a strategic trafficking corridor into the US. 

Originally one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico, it began fighting the Sinaloa in 2004. Ciudad Juarez became the murder capital of the world for three years straight, before the city's drug trade ultimately came under control of the Sinaloa. The loss of the cartel's home city, coupled with an outdated business model, led to the group's decline. 

Today, the Juarez Cartel is struggling to maintain its relevance against the Sinaloa. It has aligned itself with the Zetas and the BLO in attempts to win back its former zones of control, although this might prove difficult as the group's suspected leader was arrested in the beginning of October. 

The Knights Templar 

The Knights Templar are a relatively new group, and were formed in 2010 by Servando Gomez Martinez. Martinez was formerly a high-ranking member of the nearly extinct La Familia Michoacana, but he left the organization after its leader was killed. 

As a splinter group of La Familia, the Knights Templar employ similar strategies and trappings. They model themselves as a "self-defense" movement against other cartels on behalf of the indigenous population of Michoacana state. The Knights Templar also made use of ritualistic killings and the dismemberment of rivals in an effort to dissuade resistance. 

However, the Knights Templar's brutal methods have backfired. A popular vigilante revolt — sanctioned by the Mexican authorities — effectively pushed the Knights Templar from areas across the state. Rival cartels joined in the effort, eager for a chance to help eliminate one of their rivals.

The Gulf Cartel

The Gulf Cartel, found in the region of eastern Mexico along the Gulf Coast states, started achieving considerable success and infamy in 1984 when it associated with the Colombian Cali Cartel. Once the Gulf had significant funds, it became one of the first cartels to turn into a mega-operation with a dedicated military wing that eventually mutated into Los Zetas, now one of the most violent criminal groups in the western hemisphere.

Ironically, it was the emergence of the Zetas as a seperate entity that did the most damage to the once-powerful Gulf. By 2010, the Zetas had broken violently from the Gulf Cartel and was waging an aggressive war for territorial control in the Gulf's home state of Tamaulipas. 

Aside from war with the Zetas, the Gulf Cartel also suffered from severe infighting and several high-profile arrests of its top membership during Mexico's Drug War. Despite the setbacks, the Gulf still controls a lucrative smuggling corridor along the US-Mexico border into Texas, and the cartel has entered into alliances with the Sinaloa and the remnants of La Familia Michoacana against the Zetas. 

Los Zetas 

Los Zetas are known as being amongst the most brutal of all the criminal groups in Mexico.

The organization's origins go back to the late 1990s as the elite private security apparatus of the Gulf Cartel. In an effort to outdo their rivals, the Gulf Cartel formed the Zetas out of a core of at least 31 deserters of the Mexican Special Forces. 

The formal military training of the early Zetas, along with their penchant for committing bloody and audacious acts such as beheadings and petrol bomb attacks, have led the DEA and the Mexican authorities to declare the Zetas to be their number-one enemy within Mexico. 

In 2010, following the arrests and death of Zetas and Gulf Cartel leaders, the Zetas violently split from the Gulf Cartel, of which they had previously served as a military wing. The Zetas followed the split with a string of high-profile attacks against DEA and US immigration agents.

Today, the group has fractured somewhat under joint attacks from the Sinaloa and the Mexican government, but they have spread into Guatemala and diversified their criminal enterprises into child prostitution and oil theft. 

The Tijuana Cartel 

During its heyday in the 1990s and the early 2000s, the Tijuana Cartel, also known as the Arellano Felix, was among the strongest of the organized crime organizations in Mexico. The cartel controlled the lucrative corridor of Tijuana for running drugs and people into the US.

Today, the organization is a shell of what it once was. A series of high profile arrests and assassinations have decapitated the cartel. In 2013, the oldest brother of the family that ran the group was assassinated at a party by a man in a clown costume. Then, in 2013, the cartel's leader was arrested as well, heralding a breakdown in the organization's control. 

The sudden vacuum of leadership in Tijuana enabled the Sinaloa Cartel to move in and take control of the border town in a relatively bloodless transition. It is now believed that the remnants of the Tijuana Cartel have been folded under the Sinaloa umbrella. 

SEE ALSO: How drug cartels conquered Mexico [maps]

SEE ALSO: Here's where Mexico's top ten drug lords are right now

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The Russian government's English news outlet, Russia Today, released a 26-minute documentary about the "untold story" of the MH-17 tragedy.

The film's major thesis is that a BUK missile did not — and could not — have been what hit the MH-17 plane. Instead, it was actually a cannon fire from a (presumably) Ukrainian jet.

"The film attempts to establish what might have brought down the ill-fated airline and all 298 people abroad," RT's website says.

The mainstream consensus is that the plane was hit by a BUK missile fired by pro-Russia Ukrainian separatists.

And interestingly, Bellingcat's Eliot Higgins points out that another Russian propaganda outlet disproves that the plane was shot down by a canon.

RT: It Was A Fighter Jet 

In the film, one female witness says that the plane "was flying, but there were literally no windows. Well, [the plane was] on the level of the tallest trees."

"Within a couple of minutes, there was the sound of a plane flying away. There were two planes," she insists.

This second plane, according to the RT documentary, is the jet that allegedly fired at the MH-17.

Later on in the film, a team tests the cannon fire on aircrafts, and compares the damage to the damage of the MH-17.

"Here the results of the strike," a man says, and points to the damaged aircrafts. The documentary also shows a side-by-side comparison to the MH-17 debris.

However, Higgins has seen all of this and explain how the comparisons actually prove the opposite of what's intended:

"Another example of MH17 entry holes comes from ANNA News, a Russian language news channel embedded with separatists in Ukraine. ... as we can see, compared to the [RT] piece on the damage done to MH17 there's a significant size difference."

"Based on the Russian channel’s own tests it seems clear that the entry holes visible in the above examples do not match what’s shown in the Russian channel’s own tests. It seems that rather than prove MH17 was shot down by cannon fire as they claim, they’ve inadvertently provided evidence that it wasn’t," he adds.

RT: Why it "could not" have been the BUK missile

The documentary also attempts to disprove why the BUK missile could not have hit the MH-17.

Ivan Andrievsky, the vice president of the Russian Union of Engineers, says: "When a BUK missile is launched, it leaves a long vapor trail ... This huge vapor trail would be about 15 kilometers long."

"And given the meteorological conditions, [it would be visible for] up to 10 minutes. Imagine a huge vapor trail like that not being noticed by anyone," he adds.

Nevertheless, all non-Russian analysis of the debris have concluded that the plane was most likely hit by a missile.

The documentary concludes with an poignent interview of a victim's parents, who visited the scene of the crash.

They were hoping that their daughter might have still been alive, and went to investigate for themselves.

"We are for peace. She was for peace. She is for peace. And she will forever be for peace," says the father.

You can watch the whole documentary here.

SEE ALSO: This Photo Tells Us A Lot About How MH17 Was Shot Down

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According to the US Treasury Department, the extremist group calling itself the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) is garnering wealth at an alarmingly quick pace, with large chunks coming from black-market oil sales and ransom payments for hostages. 

ISIS earns about $1 million each day in oil sales alone, said David Cohen, the Treasury Department's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. He also said the group has netted approximately $20 million in ransom payments this year. Additionally, Cohen said ISIS has raised funds through local extortion and crime, like robbing banks.

"To some extent, ISIL poses a different terrorist financing challenge," Cohen said during remarks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington on Thursday.

"It has amassed wealth at an unprecedented pace, and its revenue sources have a different composition from those of many other terrorist organizations. Unlike, for instance, core al-Qaeda, ISIL derives a relatively small share of its funds from deep-pocket donors, and thus does not, today, depend principally on moving money across international borders. Instead, ISIL obtains the vast majority of its revenues through local criminal and terrorist activities."

Cohen heads the Treasury Department's efforts to disrupt and diminish the group's finances, which is part of President Barack Obama's strategy to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS. During his remarks, Cohen outlined what the Treasury Department knows about ISIS' funds and the department's strategy to undermine them. 

ISIS has tapped into a sophisticated oil black market in both Syria and Iraq, selling it at discounted prices to middlemen who then transport it out of ISIS strongholds. Cohen also said the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad has "made an arrangement to purchase oil" from ISIS. Beginning in mid-June, he said, ISIS has made approximately $1 million a day in oil sales.

Cohen said the Treasury Department would target with sanctions anyone who deals with ISIS' stolen oil. 

"At some point, that oil is acquired by someone who operates in the legitimate economy and who makes use of the financial system. He has a bank account. His business may be financed, his trucks may be insured, his facilities may be licensed. All that makes ISIL oil facilitators vulnerable," Cohen said.

He said the Treasury Department is "hard at work" identifying those individuals. 

The US military has also begun targeting ISIS oil refineries in its campaign in Iraq and Syria.

On ransom payments, Cohen said the US would work to make it an international consensus for countries to not pay ransoms for hostages — something that has long been US policy.

"This policy rests on the sound premise – confirmed by experience – that an explicit and consistently applied no-concessions policy reduces the frequency of kidnappings by eliminating the underlying incentive to take hostages in the first place," he said.

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Good morning! Here's what you need to know for Monday.

1. Dilma Rousseff narrowly beat her rival Aécio Neves for another term as Brazil's president. 

2. Investors have not taken the re-election news well. 

3. Twenty-five banks failed the European Central Bank's stress test because of capital shortfalls.

4. Nine of those banks were in Italy.

5. Pro-Western parties are expected to dominate Ukraine's parliamentary elections in a show of support for new leader Petro Poroshenko.

6. Canadian authorities say Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the gunman who killed a solider in Ottawa before opening fire in the Parliament building, made a video recording of himself before the attack. 

7. South Africa soccer captain and goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa was shot dead Sunday night by intruders, police say.

8. After 10 years, US and British forces officially ended military operations in the the Afghan province of Helmand, allowing Afghan's army to take control of two camps. 

9. Thousands of Hungarians protested in Budapest on Sunday over a proposed Internet tax on data transfers.

10. Criticism of the US government's response to Ebola has reached new heights after Kaci Hickox, a 33-year-old nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, expressed anger after being subjected to a state-imposed quarantine at New Jersey's Newark Airport even though she did not show symptoms. 

And finally ...

In the wake of Tesco's massive profit scandal and lagging sales, new CEO Dave Lewis kicked off the company's turnaround by taking a crew of senior execs on an overnight trip to a remote cottage, where they were ordered to shop at a local Tesco and then prepare food from the purchased groceries. “It’s been a very frenetic time and I wanted to get to know the people and talk about where the business was and where it was heading,” Lewis told The Guardian. 

SEE ALSO: The 10 Most Important Things In The World Archives

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To mark the 70th anniversary of its liberation from fascism, Rome has reopened one of the bunkers built for Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. 

A series of bunkers were built under the Italian capital during World War II to provide shelter for bureaucrats and party leaders.

Bunker di Roma, a local website, has cataloged up to 12 different bunkers beneath the city and campaigned for their refurbishment so that tourists can visit them. 

Many of the bunkers, including Mussolini's personal air raid shelter, have not been entered since the end of the war, according to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. 

Mussolini was leader of the Italian fascist movement from 1923 to 1943. 

The bunker is located below Villa Torlonia, the Roman residence of Mussolini since 1922. It's just a short walk from the Colosseum.

The shelter could house up to 15 people in case of intense bombardment. It was never used, as Mussolini was ousted by his own private council on Sept. 8, 1943.

The bunker was outfitted with the most cutting-edge technologies of the time. It was designed to protect against a gas attack, as the sign in this picture says.

A man tried to attack British Prime Minster David Cameron in Leeds today.

Cameron was entering his car, surrounded by bodyguards, when a protester tried to push him. 

A security guard immediately took out the attacker, although it does look the man managed to touch Cameron. It seems like a major lapse in security. 

Here's a Vine of the incident:

SEE ALSO: Another Guy Jumped The White House Fence

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The Obama administration is coming under increasing criticism for what critics say is a "half-hearted,""Goldilocks" approach toward defeating the extremist group ISIS in Syria.

The US military has begun the process of vetting moderate factions of rebels in Syria.

But President Barack Obama has been reluctant to commit the US military to help those nationalist Syrian forces in their fight against the regime of Syrian President Bashar-al Assad, as he is wary of getting US forces too involved in Syria's civil war. 

Experts and even some in the administration have started to hint at serious flaws in Obama's strategy to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS, also known as ISIL or the Islamic State. For instance, the administration plans to only train the rebels to defend territory — not go on the offensive — something that could provide an unintentional boost to Assad regime forces.

Gen. John Allen, the president's special envoy to the coalition fighting ISIS, also said this weekend that the US doesn't believe the rebels it trains will go on to fight forces backing Assad. Instead, he said the administration hopes to build up the moderate rebels enough that they will "become the credible force that the Assad government ultimately has to acknowledge and recognize."

The policy has befuddled Middle East analysts and experts, many of whom have blamed Assad for intentionally fueling ISIS' rise to create a jihadist vacuum. 

"The only course of action that makes sense to me is to try to build a Syrian force capable of defeating any combination of enemies in the course of stabilizing Syria," Fred Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and a former special advisor for transition in Syria at the U.S. Department of State, told Business Insider. 

"If the creation and deploying of this force persuades or compels the Assad regime to engage in genuine political negotiations, fine. A Goldilocks approach of trying to recruit and build a force just good enough to beat ISIL but not quite good enough to the beat the regime simply won't work."

The key limitation of the coalition's strategy has long been a general unwillingness to become more involved in Syria's still-deepening, three-plus-year long civil war. 

The administration's policy has frustrated the forces with which it is planning to partner in Syria. Because as the US has stepped up its campaign to rescue the beleaguered town of Kobani from the hands of ISIS, Assad has continued his barrel-bombing campaign in other, rebel-held areas of Syria.

Assad has used the breathing room allotted by the focus on ISIS to intensify his bombing campaign against Free Syrian Army-held territory, including a campaign of "200 air force strikes"' in 36 hours in recent days. One of the unknowns of the strategy could be potentially disastrous — by the time Syrian rebels are vetted and trained by late 2015 at the earliest, they may not have much territory to defend.


"Designing such a force would be problematical and frankly I do not know of any Syrian nationalist opponents of the regime and ISIL who would be attracted to the lop-sided proposition as described," Hof told Business Insider. "Syrians have, after all, suffered much more from Assad than they have from ISIL to date. As we try to square the circle of a purely American policy debate we'll have to keep in mind that Syrians will have a vote." 

The Washington Post editorial board criticized Obama's "half-hearted" strategy against ISIS, citing "major weaknesses" including a "de facto neutral stance" that has allowed Assad to step up his campaign against the FSA forces on whom the US is counting to be the ground force that helps defeat ISIS.

The editorial board also pointed to the consequences of inaction with allies — Turkey, an important partner because of its border, has been reluctant to engage militarily without a commitment from the US to oust Assad. Iraq's new government recently appointed a Shiite Iranian-affiliated interior minister. And some Sunni tribes — whose support is key against the Sunni militants of ISIS — are striking deals with the extremist group rather than join the US coalition.

"The United States will have to broaden its aims and increase its military commitment if the terrorists are to be defeated," the editorial board wrote. "At the least, Syrian rebel forces must be protected from attacks by the Assad regime and both Syrian and Iraqi units provided with U.S. advisers and air controllers. The longer Mr. Obama delays such steps, the greater the risk to vital U.S. interests."

But given domestic political constraints of sending US troops to fight in Iraq and Syria and varying allied support, other analysts believe the Obama administration's policy — Goldilocks as it may be — might be the best option.

"Support for US boots on the ground is limited and would quickly grow into opposition over time and given casualties," Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, recently told Business Insider. "And if you’re not planning on an actual substantial ground force, you’re left with a strategy that’s part pushback (where you have workable ground forces — for now, the Kurds in Iraq), part containment (west Iraq and Syria). 

"So if you’re asking is [the] present Obama strategy going to defeat ISIS — the answer is no. If you’re asking is there realistically a better, more workable strategy out there — the answer is also no." 

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At least 1,000 former Nazis were recruited by the CIA and FBI to spy on behalf of the United States during the Cold War, The New York Times reported Monday. 

The article comes ahead of the release of a book written by Times reporter Eric Lichtblau titled “The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men.”

As the book and the article explain, ex-Nazis were hired by American spy agencies at the height of the Cold War for their intelligence value against the Russians, providing leads to agency officials on communist "sympathizers." 

High-ranking SS officers like Otto von Bolschwing, mentor and top aide to Adolf Eichmann, a main architect of the "Final Solution," were protected by leading intelligence officials like J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI and Allen Dulles at the CIA. 

Records also show that some Nazis were not only recruited as spies, but were actively relocated to the US by the CIA. Von Bolschwing's son, Gus von Bolschwing, who moved to New York City in 1954 along with his father, told The Times that he didn't think his father's relationship with the CIA was "consistent with our values as a country."

Perhaps this is why the spy agency sought to keep its extensive collaboration with ex-Nazis a secret for so long. According to The Times, in 1980, FBI officials refused to tell even the Nazi hunters in the Justice Department what they knew about 16 suspected Nazis living in the United States. Agencies continued to conceal the government's ties to former Nazis still living in the US as recently as the 1990's. 

Unsurprisingly, many of the ex-Nazis recruited proved to be incompetent and untrustworthy. Some were pathological liars and embezzlers, while others turned out to be double-agents for the Soviet Union, The Times reported. 

None of the spies are known to be alive today. 

Check out the report at the Times >

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The balance of power in the Middle East is in disarray: A three-year civil war has torn apart Syria and opened up a vacuum for the rise of the Islamic State group; Sunni powers led by Saudi Arabia continue to face off against Shi'ite powers led by Iran; other countries are reeling from uprisings in the Arab Spring; and foreign powers are all taking sides.

Faced with this tense paradigm, every country in the region is building up its own military.

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Indeed, four of the five fastest-growing defense markets in 2013 were in the Middle East, led by Oman — up 115% in a year — and Saudi Arabia — up 300% in a decade — according to IHS Jane's.

We have analyzed each country to rank the most powerful militaries in the Middle East. This ranking does not count foreign powers like the US or their support, though we have noted important alliances. After looking over state militaries, we also profiled (but did not rank) some of the increasingly powerful non-state military groups.

The ranking is based on a holistic assessment of the militaries' operational capabilities and hardware, based on our research and on interviews with Patrick Megahan, an expert from the Foundation of Defense of Democracies' Military Edge project, and Chris Harmer, senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.

Some countries with large yet incapable militaries rank low on the list; some smaller and technologically advanced militaries from stable states rank fairly high.

Others present analytical challenges that are difficult to get around in a ranking format. For instance, Egypt has an enormous military with little in the way of a recent battlefield record. Syria's military is diminished by three years of war, but it has been able to fulfill the Assad regime's narrow battlefield objectives and field an operational air force.

No ranking will be absolutely exact. But here's our idea of where things stand in one of the world's least-predictable regions.

No. 15 Yemen

$1.4 billion defense budget
66,700 active frontline personnel
1,260 tanks
181 aircraft

Yemen's military has struggled in the face of an onslaught from the Houthi rebel movement, which captured the Ministry of Defense's headquarters in the capital city of Sa'ana during a September 2014 offensive. Yemen has all sorts of other problems on its hands as well, like the presence of a major Al Qaeda franchise and one of the highest rates of gun ownership on earth. 

Like a few other countries in this ranking, Yemen is ruled by a government that doesn't really control its own territory, a fact that negates much of the advantage the country might derive from its fairly large conventional military. It's a collapsed state with an outdated arsenal.

The remains of Yemen's hobbled government have also joined up with the Houthi rebels to fight Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This is actually another sign of the state's weakness. It took a motivated and organized non-state sectarian militant group to confront Yemen's Al Qaeda franchise, something the uniform military hasn't been able or willing to do.

Key allies: Yemen has had a longstanding, if sometimes uneasy, security partnership with the US and allows the US to use armed drones to go after Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on its territory.

No. 14 Lebanon

$1.7 billion defense budget
131,100 active frontline personnel
318 tanks
57 aircraft

The Lebanese Armed Forces is an all-volunteer force, having ended compulsory military service as of February 2007. Historically, the Lebanese military was kept small due to internal disagreements among the various religious groups within the country. During Lebanon's 15-year civil war, a national military effectively ceased functioning as the country was divided between Israeli, Syrian, UN, and militia zones of control. 

Since the Lebanese civil war, the Lebanese military has focused mainly on anti-terrorist and peacekeeping activities within the country. The military has been unable and unwilling to disarm the militant group Hezbollah, which is an even more capable fighting force than the Lebanese army. 

In March the International Support Group for Lebanon pledged $17.8 million to help the country modernize its military, while Saudi Arabia gave a $3 billion grant.

Currently, Lebanon's Special Forces is unevenly equipped, and the country lacks any fixed-wing aircraft. 

It is an incoherent force in a divided country, without much heavy equipment and with only notional control. "They're really far behind," Megahan, a research associate for military affairs at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an analyst for its Military Edge project, told Business Insider.

Key allies: Saudi Arabia and the US, which also provides military aid.

China is on the cusp of achieving a long-standing goal: fielding a submarine fleet that can rival even the US's naval supremacy in the Pacific, Jeremy Page writes for The Wall Street Journal.

Page reports that China has made significant progress in developing a sea-based nuclear deterrent — a group of nuclear-armed long-range subs that's nearly ready for deployment.

Today, China has one of the largest fleets of attack submarines in the world. Beijing can lay claim to six nuclear-powered attack vessels alongside an estimated 53 diesel-powered subs.

China also currently has three nuclear ballistic "boomer" submarines, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence. These subs can stay at sea for long stretches time, making them a strategically crucial part of a country's nuclear deterrent.

Whereas nuclear-powered attack submarines can undertake multi-week missions at sea, their diesel counterparts are limited in range and must surface more regularly. This limits the utility of these attack vessels to a more defensive role along China's border and within the East and South China Seas. 

However, it is the boomer submarines that can send a message to the US and flip the balance of power in the Pacific.

According to the WSJ, the boomers' missiles are capable of hitting Hawaii and Alaska from the coast of China, while from the mid-Pacific the vessels could target the continental US. 

Chinese boomers can also be outfitted with nuclear ballistic weaponry. It's a possible replay of the Cold War dynamic in which boomers served a seaborne nuclear deterrent for the US and the USSR. This was an important element of the rival powers' nuclear architecture: hard-to-detect sea-faring submarines can launch an attack even if a country's land-based military facilities are wiped out in a nuclear first strike.

China's leaders clearly realizes the importance of an under-sea missile capability. According to a commentary that China's navy chief Admiral Wu Senghli wrote in a Communist Party magazine, the boomers are "a trump card that makes our motherland proud and our adversaries terrified. It is a strategic force symbolizing great-power status and supporting national security.”

For Vice Amd. Robert Thomas, the commander of the US Seventh Fleet, the boomers and China's nuclear attack submarines convey a clear message to Beijing's potential rivals. 

Thomas told the WSJ that the vessels "say that, 'We're a professional navy, we're a professional submarine force, and we're global. We're no longer just a coastal-water submarine force."

The professionalism and capabilities of the Chinese submarine force may alter the US's calculations as the Navy undergoes its "pivot to Asia." And China is currently locked in a host of maritime border disputes with US allies in the region. 

In the East China Sea, China and Japan both lay claim to the Senkaku Islands. Although the island chain is uninhabited, the region is thought to have large natural gas reserves and plentiful fisheries. The islands are administered by Japan, and China has recently began allowing large numbers of fisherman to go to the islands in an attempt to achieve de facto control over the area. 

In the South China Sea, China has pushed its maritime boundaries into areas in contention with Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia. This contention has already led to confrontations between China, the Philippines, and Vietnam. 

The US is treaty-bound to defend Japan and the Philippines if either country is attacked. Any maritime confrontation thus has the potential — however vague, at the moment — to trigger a wider conflict between China and the US. A Chinese military professor has even warned that these maritime disputes could potentially lead to the next world war. 

As it is, any maritime conflict could lead to the US having to choose between abandoning the defensive treaties that formed the backbone of American strategy in Asia, or risking a larger confrontation with China's ever-growing military. 

China's new submarines are a continuation of China's attempts to match their military capabilities to the US's. But it isn't the only area where the two are competing. China and the US are locked in an arms race in development of hypersonic missiles and the world's first aircraft carrier-borne stealth jets. And China is trying to build up its first air craft carrier group, although it's had some technical difficulties so far.

SEE ALSO: There's a concern that part of China's army has gone rogue

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An ISIS-made guide for downing American military helicopters briefly hit Twitter last month, before the responsible account was suspended.

A US-led coalition of western and regional players has been bombing ISIS targets for weeks in an effort to check the militant group's lightning expansion. The American-led campaign has been almost entirely waged from the air, and the ISIS guide goes into fairly technical detail on how to shoot down enemy aircraft with a shoulder-fired man-portable air-defense system, or MANPADS.

Translated excerpts of the original Arabic-language guide posted on New York Times journalist CJ Chivers's website call for the destruction of Apache helicopters, specifically, to "cause a disaster to the foes and destroy their arrogance."

The guide is full of tips for effective anti-helicopter warfare. It cautions militants to take no more than ten seconds to fire their missiles, in order to go unnoticed by the Apaches' "detecting devices." It also advises fighters to fire from the ground in a way that "prevents the appearance of dust following launching." It even tells them to create decoy launch sites, then booby-trap the area with explosives in case allied ground troops arrive to investigate the attack.

Other methods to maximize the chance of success include targeting an Apache while its crew-members are busy firing their own weapons, since a distracted pilot is less likely to have the awareness needed to dodge an oncoming missile. And if two MANPADS are available, it's apparently best to have them fire at a ten-second interval, from vantage points 200 to 500 meters apart. 

These tactics fit into a larger strategy for maximizing casualties. Fighters are advised to wait for the arrival of further helicopters after an Apache is attacked and attempt to down those as well — the guide says to have 4 to 6 missiles ready for each engagement, since the overall objective is to shoot down more than one aicraft.

ISIS fighters should also have a sniper ready to pick off survivors. They are encouraged to shoot down helicopters in a way that ensures the deaths of as much of the crew as possible: MANPADS operators shouldn't fire more than "1500 Meters from the helicopter’s scope line, so we may not give the pilot the chance to escape after shooting the missile."

The guide includes worryingly specific operational instructions that suggest the author has some first-hand familiarity or even expertise with using MANPADS on the battlefield. ISIS has anti-aircraft specialists who may be spreading their knowledge among the group's ever-burgeoning ranks.

And they're creating a battlefield doctrine that reflects the group's cruelty, instructing fighters to wage war in as deadly and destructive a way as possible.

Read the rest of the guide here.

SEE ALSO: The most powerful militaries in the Middle East [RANKED]

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For months, journalist Glenn Greenwald has suggested that Edward Snowden wasn't his only source of national security-related leaks. On July 4, Greenwald tweeted that it "seems clear" there were multiple leakers from inside the US intelligence apparatus, a statement that implied Snowden may have started a wave of disclosures from national security insiders that the US intelligence community would be powerless to stop.

Now, Yahoo investigative journalist Michael Isikoff is reporting that Greenwald's second leaker is under federal investigation, specifically for passing along information on the US government's terrorist watch list that became the basis for a major story in The Intercept on Aug. 5.

Isikoff reports that "The FBI recently executed a search" of the home of "an employee of a federal contracting firm," while "federal prosecutors in Northern Virginia have opened up a criminal investigation into the matter" of the alleged leaks. One source told Isikoff that investigators are pursuing the case, "but are not ready to charge yet."

Shortly after The Intercept published its story in August, US officials told CNN that the scoop had convinced them that there was a second leaker within their ranks with access to sensitive national security information.

Greenwald has used the existence of this second leaker to legitimize Snowden's actions. As Isikoff notes, there's one point in "Citizenfour,"filmmaker Laura Poitras's recent documentary about the Snowden leaks, in which Greenwald reveals the existence of the other leaker to Snowden himself.

"The person is incredibly bold," Snowden says when Greenwald tells him about the other leaker. "It was motivated by what you did," Greenwald replies.

Additional leakers would potentially aid the case for offering some form of amnesty to Snowden. New leakers would prove the lack of a robust internal process for addressing the concerns of whistleblowers while helping to create the public pressure needed to reform the US national security apparatus — thus vindicating Snowden and bolstering the case for allowing him to return to the US.

If the government has in fact identified a second leaker, the case will be a benchmark for how and whether the US's stance towards national security leakers has changed in the 16 months since the first Snowden disclosures. The alleged leaker revealed highly sensitive and compartmentalized information, and he or she would likely qualify as the most high-profile leaker to emerge since Snowden became a household name.

Isikoff notes that some inside the intelligence community believe that federal investigators are now notably hesitant in pursuing criminal cases against leakers. This case may clarify whether the Snowden precedent, and over a year of national debate on the scope, purpose, and legality of the US's government's surveillance programs, has had any impact on the government's approach. 

SEE ALSO: The new Snowden documentary is utterly fascinating — and critically flawed

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's spy agency says it has an explanation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's mysterious 6-week-long public absence.

An aide for a South Korean lawmaker says the National Intelligence Agency told legislators on Tuesday that a foreign doctor operated on Kim in September or October to remove a cyst from his right ankle.

The aide to opposition lawmaker Shin Kyung-min said the spy agency disclosed the information in a closed-door briefing.

Kim's lengthy absence from public view triggered speculation about his health. He reappeared in state media earlier this month hobbling with a cane.

It wasn't immediately clear how the spy agency obtained the information. It has a spotty track record of analyzing developments in opaque North Korea.

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Good morning! Here's what you need to know for Tuesday.

1. Sweden just cut interest rates to zero. 

2. Lloyds bank has confirmed its plan to cut 9,000 jobs over the next three years and to close 200 branches.

3. The world population is growing so fast that not even another world war or a devastating pandemic would reduce the number of people to a sustainable amount, a new study suggests.

4. A US nurse who was involuntarily quarantined in New Jersey after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone is preparing to take legal action. 

5.The European stress test results published on Sunday had "isolated errors and inconsistencies," The Wall Street Journal reports, including a mistake in reporting the key capital ratio of one Italian bank. 

6.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly had ankle surgery. 

7. The United States Postal Service has revealed that it "approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations," The New York Times writes. 

8. Rob Ford's brother, Doug Ford, was defeated by a moderate conservative in the Toronto mayoral election on Monday. 

9. Wal-Mart said it will not accept Apple Pay. 

10. British Prime Minister David Cameron is preparing to fight the European commission's request to fork over £1.7 billion. 

And finally ...

Six-year-olds in New York City now have a designated club to party at night. 

SEE ALSO: The 10 Most Important Things In The World Archives

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Billionaire energy mogul T. Boone Pickens will put your push-up game to shame. 

The 86-year-old was the grand marshal at a number of events for Oklahoma State University's homecoming this past weekend. During the morning parade, he was cranking out push-ups while members of the ROTC carried him.

It was impressive. 

For the past 26 years, Pickens has been working out with his personal trainer every morning at 6:30. He also told us recently that he thought President Obama's workout routine was "pitiful."

Check it out:  

Banging out a few early morning push-ups as #okstate homecoming grand marshal. @okstate

A video posted by Boone Pickens (@tboonepickens) on Oct 10, 2014 at 8:01am PDT

SEE ALSO: T. BOONE PICKENS: Here's why I've never had coffee

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Politico Magazine editor Michael Hirsh asked on Monday whether the Obama administration was full of a "team of bumblers" on the foreign policy and national security sides.

At the heart of the criticism is the charge that the Obama White House is too insular and often doesn't have a strategy.

According to House Armed Services Committee staffers who spoke to Hirsh, there is often a lack of coordination among the White House, Capitol Hill, and the Pentagon. And the general feeling is that the administration's National Security Council, which has beefed up to 300 members from 50, is reacting to a series of crises, rather than being proactive with a coherent strategy.

"There is a sense that the NSC is run a little like beehive ball soccer, where everyone storms to wherever the ball is moving around the field," one former administration official said.

The criticism — from a variety of sources — that the administration has settled on "reacting" rather than "acting" is one that has gained steady traction since President Barack Obama told reporters in August that the administration did not "have a strategy yet" toward combating the Islamic State extremist group (also called ISIS or ISIL).

One senior Armed Services Committee staffer told Hirsh the Department of Defense “and Capitol Hill are often taken by surprise at same time and on same issues” by the White House.

Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), a frequent critic of the administration on national security and foreign policy issues, said in August the administration was constantly "flailing" from one issue to another. After the murder of James Foley by ISIS, McCain said he was amazed Obama still did not commit to the "comprehensive strategy necessary to defeat ISIS."

Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican chair of the House Budget Committee and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's running mate in 2012, also blasted the administration's reactionary nature in an interview with Business Insider earlier this year.

"The problem is, they're reacting always. They're reacting on a day-by-day basis and making decisions without an overall fundamental policy, strategy, or philosophy," Ryan said. "That is dangerous."

Others have pointed to the limitations of the Obama administration's current strategy and also suggest that the administration had a hand in creating the conditions that led to those limitations.

"If you’re asking is [the] present Obama strategy going to defeat ISIS — the answer is no," geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, recently told Business Insider. "If you’re asking is there realistically a better, more workable strategy out there — the answer is also no."

The Politico story details one particularly stunning example of a lack of communication between the White House and Defense Department. It came on the day Obama laid out his strategy to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS during a primetime address from the White House, which included a request for Congress to grant his administration the authority to vet, arm, and train moderate Syrian rebels.

A senior defense official told Politico the DoD didn't know "the policy was going to be in the speech." The White House also did not have Pentagon lawyers review the legislative language it sent to Capitol Hill, which Republican staffers on the House Armed Services Committee said was "so sloppy that it failed to mention adequate protections against so-called 'green-on-blue' attacks by trainees on American troops."

Fred Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and a former special adviser for transition in Syria at the US Department of State, recently told Business Insider the administration's policy on ISIS and Syria was like "squaring the circle."

SEE ALSO: Obama Is Getting Slammed For His 'Goldilocks Approach' To ISIS And Syria

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