The "Disposition Matrix"

Today the Washington Post starts a three-piece series on U.S counterterrorism policies and targeted killings with Greg Miller's piece on the "disposition matrix," the systematizing of tracking targeted individuals and the means of pursuing them, both kinetic and non-kinetic.

I'll withhold comment until I've seen the other two pieces in this series . . . well, except for two notes:
1) The premise of the piece, supported by the analysts and officials Miller interviewed, appears to validate my thesis about the growing importance of targeting individuals to U.S. national security; and
2) The "Disposition Matrix" has to rank up there with the greatest euphemisms of all time!

Photos of the SEALs Abbottabad Mockup

An interesting piece at The Atlantic displaying satellite photos of the mockup of Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound that was used by the SEALs to train for the May 1, 2011 raid that killed al-Qa'ida's leader.

The Abbottabad mockup under construction

Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound in May 2011.

One of the more interesting details that "Mark Owen" reveals in No Easy Day is that although they had very good satellite imagery of the compound's exterior dimensions, he claims they had no idea of what the interior looked like despite earlier reporting that imaging had allowed the builders to recreate the compound down to the last detail.   

Today in Manhunting History: October 3, 1993 -- The Battle of Mogadishu

I already marked the anniversary of the operation that inspired "Black Hawk Down" here last year.

But CommandPosts.com -- an excellent site focusing on military history and special operations -- has republished two pieces I wrote for them on this subject in 2011: "Warlord's Revenge" and "The 'Mogadishu Effect' and Risk Acceptance."

[Note: For some reason blogger isn't letting me change the font color for links, so my apologies if they are hard to read.]