Dangerous maneuvers at sea

But Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman says the Chinese ships surrounded the American ship and maneuvered aggressively and dangerously.

“This was a reckless and dangerous maneuver that was unprofessional and that violates the international law [requirement] to operate with due regard for the rights and safety of other users of the ocean,” Whitman said.
A news release says two of the Chinese ships stopped directly in front of the USNS Impeccable, forcing it to make an emergency stop. The release says U.S. crew members sprayed water from a fire hose at one of the Chinese ships, and the U.S. ship radioed the Chinese asking for a safe path out of the area.

US says Impeccable is research vessel

Bryan Whitman says the Impeccable is a research vessel, which carries no significant weapons. According to the U.S. Navy, the ship is 84 meters long and 25 meters wide, and half its 50 crew members are civilians. Whitman says the ship was conducting routine “ocean surveillance” in international waters 120 kilometers south of China’s Hainan Island when the Chinese ships approached aggressively, one to within eight meters.
“These are dangerously close maneuvers that these vessels did,” Whitman noted. “They also dropped pieces of wood in the water directly in front of the Impeccable’s path. They also used poles in an attempt to snag the Impeccable’s towed acoustical array.”

The towed array is a piece of sonar equipment.

Some Chinese crew members undressed down to underwear

Whitman said some of the Chinese crew members undressed down to their underwear in an apparent show of disrespect, what Whitman called an “immature” display. But he said the close maneuvering and attempts to disrupt the U.S. ship’s progress were serious.

“This is not the first time that there has been some provocative maneuvering, but I think this is one of the most aggressive incidents that we have seen in some time,” Whitman said.

The official release says Chinese ships and aircraft have engaged in “increasingly aggressive conduct” toward U.S. Navy ships in recent days. It cites three previous incidents, two of them involving the same American ship, in which Chinese ships, including a navy frigate, approached at close range, shined lights and verbally harassed U.S. ships by radio. In another incident, a Chinese aircraft flew at low altitude alongside the Impeccable 11 times.

China Accuses US Ship of Violating Chinese, International Law

If Israel agrees to stop shooting, Israel radio said a truce summit would be held in Cairo Sunday with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Israeli leaders expected to attend.

Hamas’ political chief rejected Israel’s conditions, but negotiators for the Islamic militant group were in behind-the-scenes contact with mediators in Cairo and signaled it was time for a truce.

“If they are ready, we are ready,” Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas figure, told Sky News.

Israel launched its military offensive Dec. 27 to try to halt Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel, and top envoys were in Cairo and Washington on Friday to discuss cease-fire terms.

Palestinian medics say the fighting has killed at least 1,140 Palestinians and Israel’s bombing campaign caused massive destruction in the Gaza Strip. Thirteen Israelis have been killed, four by rocket fire, according to Israel.

The Israeli vote was scheduled hours after the U.S. paved the way by agreeing to provide assurances that Hamas will not be able to rearm if Israel approves a cease-fire. It comes ahead of President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday, and Israeli elections next month.

A senior Israeli official said a vote approving the truce would amount to a “unilateral” cease-fire, though Israeli forces would only leave Gaza after an official declaration that the fighting was over. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

A truce would begin a phased process in which Israel halts its military offensive and then gauges the reaction from Hamas militants, the official said. If the militants continue to fire rockets, the assault would resume.

Under the deal, Egypt would shut down weapons smuggling routes with international help, and discussions on opening Gaza’s blockaded border crossings would take place at a later date.

U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said Ban, who had weekend visits planned to Lebanon and Syria, was considering whether to attend a summit in Cairo Sunday, adding: “There’s been no decision yet.”

Israeli leaders were also considering whether to attend the summit, the senior Israeli official said.

The diplomatic developments coincided with an easing of violence in Gaza, where Israeli assaults killed 14 Palestinians on Friday, a lower death toll than in recent days. Palestinian medics took advantage of the relative calm, digging out 25 bodies buried under rubble in areas where Israeli forces and militants had clashed.

Palestinians heard dozens of Israeli tanks and other military vehicles roll away from the eastern and southern edges of Gaza City. An Israeli security official said the tanks would redeploy and were not withdrawing. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Israeli envoy Amos Gilad returned from Cairo and reported “substantial progress” in truce talks with Egyptian mediators, said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

“I hope we are entering the endgame and that our goal of sustained and durable quiet in the south is about to be attained,” Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni signed an agreement intended to prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons into Gaza if a cease-fire is implemented.

Livni described the deal as “vital … for a cessation of hostility” and said it was meant “to complement Egyptian actions and to end of the flow of weapons to Gaza.”

Earlier, Rice said she hoped European countries would work out similar bilateral agreements with Israel.

“There are a number of conditions that need to be obtained if a cease-fire is to be durable,” Rice said. “Among them is to do something about the weapons smuggling and the potential for resupply of Hamas from other places, including from Iran.”

The agreement outlines a framework under which the United States commits detection and surveillance equipment, as well as logistical help and training to Israel, Egypt and other nations to be used in monitoring Gaza’s land and sea borders.

Rice and State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Obama and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton had been consulted on the details of the document, which was concluded after frenetic negotiations to address Israeli concerns that Hamas would use a cease-fire to stock up on weapons.

A diplomat on the U.N. Security Council in New York said he was reasonably optimistic that “we are in the last leg of the negotiations,” though some issues remain unresolved.

There were long discussions on border security because the Egyptians don’t want any kind of international presence on their side of the border, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are being held behind closed doors.

“Everything has to be on the other side of the border, which means there’s a problem of who will be there, not only on behalf of the international community, but also which Palestinians. So it’s linked to a potential agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority — so it’s linked to other discussions,” the diplomat said.

In addition, he said, discussions were under way with the U.S. on technology to help locate and destroy the tunnels Hamas has used to smuggle in weapons.

In Gaza, residents said they would welcome an end to the fighting, but expressed skepticism a cease-fire can hold.

“Everybody wants the world to return to what it was. But I think it’s empty words,” said Ghadir Mohammed, who was forced to flee her Gaza City home because of the fighting. “Let’s assume if Hamas fires a rocket, will they be quiet about it? Israel isn’t the kind to be quiet.”

Hiba Dahshan from the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun where some of the heaviest fighting has taken place, said: “We are exhausted. We need a solution. Hopefully they’ll halt fire.”

A resident of the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, which has been targeted by Hamas rockets, said the army needed to free Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit — abducted by Hamas in 2006 — and be sure there would be quiet in southern Israel before stopping the fight.

“For eight years, they have been shooting at us,” said Yigal Hakmon, manager of a convenience store. “We can’t stop in the middle. We have to finish. We have to kill all the Hamas people.”

Hamas, which has controlled the tiny Mediterranean strip since 2007, has demanded an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the opening of blockaded border crossings.

Mohamed Nazzal, a Hamas official based in Damascus, said the Egyptians invited Hamas on Friday for more discussions.

“It is expected that we go to see what is the opinion of the Israelis on the Hamas propositions,” Nazzal said.

The Syrian-based Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal took a hard line at a summit of Arab countries in the Qatari capital of Doha, asking them to cut off any ties with Israel.

“We will not accept Israel’s conditions for a cease-fire,” Mashaal told the summit. He said Hamas demands that “the aggression stop,” Israeli troops withdraw and crossings into Gaza open immediately.

Qatar and Mauritania heeded Mashaal’s call, suspending political and economic contacts with Israel to protest the fighting. Qatar does not have diplomatic relations with Israel but maintains lower-level ties; Mauritania has full relations, but Israel’s embassy in Mauritania was to remain and its ambassador was not being expelled.

Israel says it’s near ‘endgame’ for Gaza offensive – Yahoo! News

Despite the announcement, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik dodged a question on whether he was conceding the plot _ which killed 164 people in India’s commercial capital and raised tension between the nuclear-armed rivals _ was hatched on Pakistani soil.

India says a Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, masterminded the November attack. In the days afterward, the U.N. Security Council declared that Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a charity in Pakistan, was merely a front for the outlawed militant organization.

In a news conference, Malik said 124 leaders of several groups had been arrested, and that authorities had taken steps against 20 offices, 87 schools, two libraries, seven religious schools, and six Web sites linked to the charity. He also said authorities had shut more than a dozen relief camps operated by the charity, some of which have been alleged to be militant training grounds.

It was unclear exactly how many people remained in Pakistani custody, however, and Malik at one point indicated many may now simply be under surveillance. Some are also under house arrest.

Among those under house arrest is Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Also in custody are Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah, two men India alleges planned the Mumbai attacks.

Malik repeated Islamabad’s call for a joint investigation into the attacks and urged India to hand over more information to assist Pakistan’s own probe.

“We are fully committed to help India in this investigation,” he said. “We have to prove to the world that India and Pakistan stand together against the terrorists because they are the common enemies.”

On Jan. 5, India handed Pakistan a dossier of evidence including information on interrogations, weapons and data gleaned from satellite phones used by the attackers.

India said the material proved Pakistan-based militants plotted and executed the attacks and has repeatedly insinuated that Pakistani intelligence agents were involved.

Pakistan denies that. However, it is under strong pressure from countries including the United States and Britain, whose citizens were among the dead in Mumbai, to clamp down Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Pakistan has used the group in the past as a proxy force against India in their struggle over the divided Kashmir region. Washington says the group has developed ties to al-Qaida.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in Mumbai on Thursday that Pakistan, a front-line ally of the West also against the al-Qaida and the Taliban, must show “zero tolerance” for all terror networks on its soil.

Miliband plans to visit Pakistan in the coming days.

Malik said Pakistani detectives would “inquire into” the information provided by India “to try to transform it to evidence, evidence which can stand the test of any court in the world and of course our own court of law.”

As other officials have from the start, he appeared to rule out handing over suspects to India, saying Pakistani laws allowed for the prosecution of citizens who committed crimes elsewhere.

India indicated for the first time that it could accept that stance.

“It would be ideal if they (Pakistan’s government) can hand over the fugitives,” Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told Indian news channel Aaj Tak on Wednesday. “If that is not possible, there should at least be a fair trial of these fugitives in Pakistan.”

The United States expressed some satisfaction at how the South Asian neighbors, who have fought three wars in the past and redeployed some of their troops in recent weeks, were managing the fallout from the Mumbai bloodshed and urged more cooperation.

“We would like to see more the exchange of information about the Mumbai attacks so that you can get to the bottom of exactly who was responsible, see the entire plot, and hold all responsible for their actions, and make sure that in doing so you prevent any further plots from getting to the point of execution,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday.

Duluth News Tribune | Duluth, Minnesota

The rockets, presumably launched in support of Hamas, could presage the opening of a second front. The Israeli Army, in a brief statement, said it “responded with fire against the source of the rockets,” which landed near the town of Nahariya. Two Israelis were slightly wounded, the police said.

Lebanese security sources told Reuters that they believed it was unlikely that the rockets were fired under instructions from the militant group Hezbollah. But there was no confirmation or denial from Hezbollah itself.

In 2006, after the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier just outside Gaza, a large Israeli operation there was overshadowed by Israeli’s massive response to an attack in the north by Hezbollah, which turned into what is known as the Second Lebanon War.

On Wednesday, Israel had said that it would send senior officials to talk with Egypt about halting the conflict in Gaza, but there were no immediate signs of a diplomatic breakthrough, and fighting between Israel and Hamas militants continued after a three-hour lull for humanitarian aid to be distributed.

International pressure for a negotiated cease-fire intensified after Israeli shells killed some 40 people at a United Nations school in Gaza on Tuesday. Israel said Hamas militants had fired mortar shells from the school compound prior to Israel’s shelling.

Israel suspended its military operations in Gaza for three hours on Wednesday to allow humanitarian aid and fuel for power generation to reach Gazans, who used the afternoon break to shop.

But fighting resumed soon afterward. In the evening, the Israeli Army dropped leaflets warning the citizens of Rafah, next to the border with Egypt, to leave their homes. Israel has been bombing the tunnel networks through which arms and consumer goods are smuggled from Egypt into Gaza.

The rockets from Lebanon fell in residential areas. Shimon Koren, head of the northern district police, instructed residents of Nahariya and Kabri to enter bomb shelters and he instructed residents in nearby localities to open their shelters. School was cancelled in Nahariya and nearby Shlomi. The Israeli government said it welcomed the efforts of France and Egypt to work out a durable cease-fire. It said it would end its assault if Hamas stopped firing rockets into Israel and ended the smuggling of weapons from Egypt. It said that if a durable cease-fire took hold, it would reopen border crossings into Gaza for goods and people. But Israeli and Hamas officials both denied an assertion by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, that a cease-fire had been agreed upon.

“There is an agreement on general principles, that Hamas should stop rocket fire and mustn’t rearm,” a senior Israeli official said Wednesday evening. “But that’s like agreeing that motherhood is a good thing. We have to transform those agreed principles into working procedures on the ground, and that’s barely begun.”

The government spokesman, Mark Regev, said that “the challenge now is to get the details to match the principles.”

There were early signs that a formal diplomatic negotiation could begin after 12 days of fighting. Egypt’s chief of intelligence, Omar Suleiman, is expected to serve as a go-between for Israel and Hamas. Two Israeli officials — a senior aide to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Shalom Turgeman, and a senior defense official, Amos Gilad — are expected to go to Egypt on Thursday to begin discussions, Israeli officials said.

The United States has been involved behind the scenes, senior Israeli and French officials said, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice “constantly on the phone” with Mr. Olmert, according to one Israeli official.

In Washington, the White House spokeswoman, Dana M. Perino, said of talks about a cease-fire: “As I understand, the Israelis are open to the concept, but they want to learn more about the details; so do we.”

At the United Nations, several Arab delegates said Wednesday night that they thought they now had enough votes to approve a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire. That would likely put the United States and other Western powers, which oppose a binding resolution, in the awkward position of having to veto a cease-fire.

A senior French official in Paris said that Mr. Sarkozy’s earlier comment about an agreement on a cease-fire was misunderstood: “The plan is not a cease-fire; the plan is a road map toward a cease-fire.” One crucial aspect of any deal is how to prevent new smuggling tunnels from being built under Egypt’s border with Gaza.

The senior Israeli official raised the possibility of reaching “tacit agreements” with Hamas to end rocket fire, while also persuading Egypt to allow American and perhaps European army engineers to help seal its border with Gaza above and below ground.

Hamas is insisting that any new arrangement include the reopening of border crossings for trade with Israel and the reopening of the Rafah crossing into Egypt for people.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has said that a 2005 agreement on the Rafah crossing, reached with Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, must be respected. That agreement called for a Palestinian Authority presence at the crossing, supervision by European Union monitors and Israeli video surveillance of who entered and left.

Hamas wants to control the crossing itself and is not eager to cooperate with Fatah, its -rival.

In Washington, President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday that upon taking office he would “engage immediately” in the Middle East crisis and that he was “deeply concerned” about the loss of life on both sides.

“I am doing everything that we have to do to make sure that the day I take office we are prepared to engage immediately in trying to deal with the situation there,” he said at a news conference. “Not only the short-term situation but building a process whereby we can achieve a more lasting peace in the region.”

In Gaza, John Ging, the director of Gazan operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, visited the school in the Jabaliya refugee camp where Israeli shells fell Tuesday. He denied that Hamas militants had fired mortar shells from within the school compound and called for an international investigation into the attack, which he said had killed 40 people.

Israeli officials said they were continuing to investigate, but reiterated that Hamas had been using the school as a base. Mr. Gilad, the defense official, told Israeli Army radio: “This school served as a base for Hamas men whose identity we know. They fired from inside the school compound, and the army fired back at the source. The time was after school hours, and this school is an example of the cynical and cruel use Hamas does with civilian facilities.”

Casualty figures are hard to verify, but officials at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and the Gazan Ministry of Health said 683 Palestinians had died since the conflict began Dec. 27, including 218 children and 90 women. They said 3,085 had been wounded. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza said 130 children age 16 or under had died. The United Nations estimated a few days ago that a quarter of the dead were civilians.

But Palestinian residents and Israeli officials say that Hamas is tending its own wounded in separate medical centers, not in public hospitals, and that it is difficult to know the number of dead Hamas fighters, many of whom were not wearing uniforms.

Israel says it has killed at least 130 Hamas fighters. Ten Israelis have been killed during the offensive, including three civilians. Most of the seven dead Israeli soldiers were killed in so-called friendly fire.

He also claimed, without providing details, that the US intelligence community had disrupted an attack “that would have rivaled the destruction of 9/11.” A senior intelligence official said Hayden was referring to the 2006 liquid bomb on airliners plot that was foiled in London.

“American and its friends have taken the fight to the enemy,” Gen. Hayden said in a broad roundup of efforts to fight al Qaeda.

“Al Qaeda has suffered serious setbacks, but it is a determined, adaptive enemy unlike any our nation has ever faced,” he said.

Without directly referring to the CIA’s offensive blitz of unmanned missile attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan, the CIA boss said the US had successfully isolated the al Qaeda leader bin Laden, referring to him in the present tense.

“He appears to be largely isolated from the day-to-day operations of the organization he leads,” Hayden said in a speech delivered to the Atlantic Council in Washington.

Hayden said the failure to kill or capture bin Laden in the seven years since the 9/11 attacks, could be explained by the “rugged and inaccessible” terrain of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area and “the fact that bin Laden has worked to avoid detection.”

The CIA director provided no other details but it was the first public indication of the intelligence agency’s growing effort to narrow the focus of the search for bin Laden and other top terror leaders.

President-elect Barack Obama has not yet decided whether he will ask Hayden to stay on as director. Several of Obama’s top advisers feel that while Hayden did a good job stabilizing morale and performance at the CIA following the debacle of the Iraq War, his connections to warrantless surveillance and so-called torture techniques make him unacceptable as the continuing director of the CIA.

“The truth is, we simply don’t know what would happen if bin Laden is killed or captured, but I’m willing to bet that it would work in our favor,” Hayden said.

Hayden said the deaths of at least six top al Qaeda commanders in Pakistan had kept the terror group “off balance.”

Hayden said he wanted to give the incoming administration “as clear a picture as possible of the state of the conflict and the shape of the enemy.”

He claimed al Qaeda in Iraq “is on the verge of strategic defeat.” But he said the “bleed-out” of al Qaeda veterans from Iraq is now a growing concern.

“Iraq veterans also have been involved in planning attacks in Europe and the United States,” Gen. Hayden said.

The good news of success in Iraq against al Qaeda was measured against the terror group’s alarming growth in North and East Africa and Yemen, he said in his remarks.

Hayden also took a question about his political future as the head of the agency in an Obama administration after his speech to the Atlantic Council. Hayden said, “I’ll let Adm. McConnell, speak for himself…we serve at the pleasure of the President…This is a decision for the President…If asked to stay I would strongly consider it.”

Hayden also said, “The DNI is the top intelligence advisor to the President, so there has to be a personal relationship.”

ABC News

Ali Jarrah, 50, a Lebanese citizen, and his brother Youssef, from Marj in the Bekaa valley, were arrested last week by the Lebanese army, which charged them with espionage. A third suspect has also been held, sources close to the investigation said. All three face the death penalty.

The spy ring has been linked to the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, a leading figure in Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’ite militia, who was killed in a bomb blast in Damascus in February. Hezbollah’s leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, blamed Israel for the attack and vowed to take revenge.

Mughniyeh has long been a target for Israel and America. He was responsible for bombing the US marine barracks and embassy in Beirut in 1983, in which more than 350 died, and was behind an attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, which killed 29.

One source suggested the brothers may have been “spotters”, part of an observation team that monitored Mughniyeh’s movements shortly before his death. Others said there was no direct evidence of this. According to the Lebanese army, Jarrah and his brother were found to possess “communication devices and other sophisticated equipment”.

Lebanese investigators impounded a Mitsubishi Pajero 4×4 parked in front of Jarrah’s home. The vehicle was said to be fitted with advanced surveillance equipment.

“Some equipment was found in his house; other items were hidden in a vehicle,” said a security official who claimed the men had also been monitoring the movement of officials crossing the Syrian-Lebanese border.

According to Lebanese sources, the Jarrah brothers were recruited by Israel during the 1980s, when the Israeli army controlled large swathes of southern Lebanon.

Ali Jarrah is said to have joined militant Palestinian groups, which enabled him to travel between Lebanon and Syria and move around Damascus without attracting suspicion.

Sources close to the investigation said Jarrah had confessed to having been recruited by the Israelis to gather intelligence on militant Palestinian organisations in Lebanon.

Only in recent years had he started to monitor senior figures in Hezbollah, it was claimed. A statement issued by the Lebanese army said the two men had admitted to “gathering information on political party offices and monitoring the movements of party figures for the enemy”.

The Beirut paper As-Safir reported that during the war with Israel in southern Lebanon in 2006, Jarrah was seen with a video camera at relief centres connected to Hezbollah. “Was he pinpointing security targets in the Bekaa?” it asked.

According to the paper, investigators are attempting to determine whether a video camera fixed inside Jarrah’s car was directly connected by a satellite link to controllers in Israel.

Since the death of Mughniyeh, who was killed instantly when a booby-trapped headrest in his 4×4 exploded, Hezbollah has been determined to track down his assassins.

The brothers had apparently been frequent visitors to the Kfar Sousa district of Damascus where Mughniyeh, who had an American bounty of $5m (£3.2m) on his head, was finally identified.

According to some reports, Jarrah was first picked up in the southern suburbs of Beirut by Hezbollah security men on July 7, after being suspected of having had a role in Mughniyeh’s assassination.

Hezbollah is said to have finally handed Jarrah to the Lebanese authorities after questioning him for nearly four months.

According to Lebanese security sources, the brothers are distantly related to Ziad Jarrah, one of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001, killing everyone on board. Their families come from the same town in the Bekaa valley.

The Israeli government has refused to comment on the arrests.

Times Online

In May 2005 IAI announced the Turkish procurement contract worth $150 million, under which a joint company owned equally by IAI and Elbit Systems will be subcontracted by the Turkish TUSAS Aerospace Industry (TAI) to supply Heron UAVs, Elbit Systems ground systems and payloads for the Turkish MOD. Another contract worth of $50 million was signed with Israel MOD for the supply of Heron UAVs and multi-year support. According to IAI, the delivery of the first system is imminent. The IAF designation of the new UAV will be “Shoval” (Trail in Hebrew). It will replace the Searcher I and II currently in service.

A derivative of the Heron named Eagle was selected by the French Air Force, to provide strategic and theater reconnaissance, intelligence collection and communications support. It is also expected to operate in the maritime surveillance and anti-surface warfare role. The UAV is powered by a 115 hp Rotax 914 engine and is designed to operate on missions of over 40 hours at an altitude of 30,000 feet. It can carry multiple payloads at a total weight of 250kg.

An enhanced version of the Heron, called Heron TP or Eitan, is developed for the Israel Air Force. Both vehicles are fully autonomous throughout the mission, including the automatic takeoff and landing phases. The vehicle is designed to carry multiple payloads, and perform multiple missions, such as COMINT, SIGINT and IMINT or SAR, IMINT and communications relay etc. Eagle can carry several types of sensors, including maritime patrol radar (MPR), different types of SAR/MTI, EO/IR payloads, SIGINT, COMINT, laser designator, communications relays etc.

Heron MALE System