WND | The families of three fallen Navy SEAL Team Six members say President Obama and Vice President Biden are culpable for the deaths of their sons for publicly identifying the unit that killed Osama bin Laden and pursuing policies that coddle Muslims and put our own troops at a tactical disadvantage.

Wired.com | America’s ship-launched X-47B killer drone prototype took off for the first time from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush sailing near the Maryland coast on Tuesday morning — the first step in proving that a high-performance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is compatible with the Navy’s fleet of 10 gigantic nuclear-powered flattops.

Washington's Blog | Fire Dog Lake’s Kevin Gosztola notes: Linda J. Bilmes and Michael D. Intriligator, ask in a recent paper, “How many wars is the US fighting today?” Today US military operations are involved in scores of countries across all the five continents. The US military is the world’s largest landlord, with significant military facilities in nations around the world, and with a significant presence in Bahrain, Djibouti,Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Kyrgyzstan, in addition to long-established bases in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and the UK.

NYT | Turkish officials said Sunday that they had arrested nine people accused of carrying out twin bombings in this town near the Syrian border the day before, as the investigation moved at a clip that underscored the intense pressure on the government to contain the fallout from the attacks. Officials said the detainees were all Turkish citizens and asserted that the group had been backed by the intelligence services of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

The Blaze | Pat Smith, the mother of one of the four Americans slain on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, took to Fox News over the weekend with a “Mother’s Day” message for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Speaking with Mike Huckabee, Smith said the congressional hearings last week gave her absolutely no closure, and that she is still “waiting for answers to just about everything.”

NYT | The problem of sexual assault in the military leapt to the forefront in Washington on Tuesday as the Pentagon released a survey estimating that 26,000 people in the armed forces were sexually assaulted last year, up from 19,000 in 2010, and an angry President Obama and Congress demanded action.The study, based on a confidential survey sent to 108,000 active-duty service members, was released two days after the officer in charge of sexual assault prevention programs for the Air Force was arrested and charged with sexual battery for grabbing a woman’s breasts and buttocks in an Arlington, Va., parking lot.

NYT | Near Damascus, Hezbollah fighters are defending the shrine of Sayida Zeinab, revered by Shiite Muslims, from encroaching Sunni rebels. To the north, they are not just part of a Syrian government drive to take back the strategic town of Qusair, rebels say, they are leading it. On Tuesday, Syrian opposition activists reported that rebels had killed 15 Hezbollah fighters in Qusair. But they also said the rebels were besieged in the town and in danger of losing it, after black-clad Hezbollah fighters swept them from surrounding villages.

Zerohedge.com | In the aftermath of last night’s second attack in two weeks by Israel on Syria, the immediate response has so far been muted, with Syria condemning the aggression as an act of war. According to UPI, Syria “vowed to retaliate after an apparent Israeli airstrike on the capital Damascus early Sunday. A government official said on CNN the attack on a military research facility was “an act of war” that the government would not take lightly. “Syria is a country that does not accept insults and it doesn’t accept humiliation,” said Omran Zoabi, Syria’s information minister.

Guardian | Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali was investigating 2007 killing of former PM, a case in which Pervez Musharraf is under house arrest. Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, a Pakistani special prosecutor working on the Benazir Bhutto murder case, has been shot dead. Pervez Musharraf, the country's former military ruler, is under house arrest as part of the investigation. A lawyer leading the effort to prosecute Pakistan's former military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, over the murder of Benazir Bhutto has been shot dead in Islamabad as he was driving to court.

Breitbart | The statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart News report on Obama administration Pentagon appointees meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein to develop court-martial procedures to punish Christians in the military who express or share their faith. (From our earlier report: Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and says Christians--including chaplains--sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military are guilty of “treason,” and of committing an act of “spiritual rape” as serious a crime as “sexual assault.” He also asserted that Christians sharing their faith in the military are “enemies of the Constitution.”)

NYT | Americans are exhibiting an isolationist streak, with majorities across party lines decidedly opposed to American intervention in North Korea or Syria, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. While the public does not support direct military action in those two countries right now, a broad 70 percent majority favors the use of remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, to carry out bombing attacks against terrorism suspects in foreign countries.

Telegraph | A battle near a factory believed to be one of the Syrian regime's main chemical weapons plants shows just how close such weapons could be to falling into al-Qaeda's hands, writes Colin Freeman. Set amid the rolling plains outside Aleppo, the town of al-Safira looks just like another vicious battleground in Syria's civil war. On one side are lightly-armed rebels, on the other are government troops, and in between is a hotly-contested no-man's land of bombed-out homes and burned-out military vehicles.

AP | The US readied a package Saturday of up to $130m in non-lethal military aid to Syrian opposition forces while European countries consider easing an arms embargo, moves that could further pressure the government of President Bashar al-Assad. US secretary of state John Kerry was expected to announce the plans about the defensive military supplies at a meeting Saturday that was bringing together the Syrian opposition leadership and their main international allies.

Wired.com | If the U.S. military wants to spot an enemy creeping up at night using only his body heat, it relies on bulky thermal cameras that need to be lugged around in tanks, planes and helicopters. Only now the Pentagon’s far-out researchers think they’ve developed infrared cameras and targeting systems small enough to fit in a soldier’s hand.