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This article reports that reconnaissance specialists of Great Britain have admitted that they don't know exactly what's going to happen when the first two airborne stand-off radar or Astor ground-surveillance aircraft are put in the hands of aircrews later this year. There are, of course, the basics, which involve use of various synthetic aperture radar (SAR) modes--including swath, spot and ground moving target indicator (GMTI) and intelligence fusion--to supply intelligence to a combat brigade headquarters about what's moving and emitting on the battlefield around it. The SAR data can be manipulated further to offer change detection, which allows the system to identify what has left or come on to the battlefield, such as mobile air defense or battlefield ballistic missiles. Using GMTI, Astor also can track where those targets of interest go.

The article reports that Great Britain's military is assembling a collaborative warfare force for its operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world that parallels the latest technology effort of the U.S. in Iraq. The collaborative warfare is allowing the U.S. military and intelligence agencies to locate, target, and kill key individuals in groups such as Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgency, and renegade Shia militias.