Tuesday, March 29, 2011

DTN News - PAKISTAN UNREST: Pakistan's Secret Dirty War

DTN News - PAKISTAN UNREST: Pakistan's Secret Dirty War
(NSI News Source Info) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - March 29, 2011:

In Balochistan, mutilated corpses bearing the signs of torture keep turning up, among them lawyers, students and farm workers. Why is no one investigating and what have they got to do with the bloody battle for Pakistan's largest province?

Lala Bibi with her father and son

Lala Bibi with her father and son Saeed Ahmed – and photographs of her murdered son Najibullah and his cousin, who was also abducted. Photograph: Declan Walsh for the Guardian

The bodies surface quietly, like corks bobbing up in the dark. They come in twos and threes, a few times a week, dumped on desolate mountains or empty city roads, bearing the scars of great cruelty. Arms and legs are snapped; faces are bruised and swollen. Flesh is sliced with knives or punctured with drills; genitals are singed with electric prods. In some cases the bodies are unrecognisable, sprinkled with lime or chewed by wild animals. All have a gunshot wound in the head.

This gruesome parade of corpses has been surfacing in Balochistan,Pakistan's largest province, since last July. Several human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have accounted for more than 100 bodies – lawyers, students, taxi drivers, farm workers. Most have been tortured. The last three were discovered on Sunday.

If you have not heard of this epic killing spree, though, don't worry: neither have most Pakistanis. Newspaper reports from Balochistan are buried quietly on the inside pages, cloaked in euphemisms or, quite often, not published at all.

The forces of law and order also seem to be curiously indifferent to the plight of the dead men. Not a single person has been arrested or prosecuted; in fact, police investigators openly admit they are not even looking for anyone. The stunning lack of interest in Pakistan's greatest murder mystery in decades becomes more understandable, however, when it emerges that the prime suspect is not some shady gang of sadistic serial killers, but the country's powerful military and its unaccountable intelligence men.

This is Pakistan's dirty little war. While foreign attention is focused on theTaliban, a deadly secondary conflict is bubbling in Balochistan, a sprawling, mineral-rich province along the western borders withAfghanistan and Iran. On one side is a scrappy coalition of guerrillas fighting for independence from Pakistan; on the other is a powerful army that seeks to quash their insurgency with maximum prejudice. The revolt, which has been rumbling for more than six years, is spiced by foreign interests and intrigues – US spy bases, Chinese business, vast underground reserves of copper, oil and gold.

And in recent months it has grown dramatically worse. At the airport in Quetta, the provincial capital, a brusque man in a cheap suit marches up to my taxi with a rattle of questions. "Who is this? What's he doing here? Where is he staying?" he asks the driver, jerking a thumb towards me. Scribbling the answers, he waves us on. "Intelligence," says the driver.

The city itself is tense, ringed by jagged, snow-dusted hills and crowded with military checkposts manned by the Frontier Corps (FC), a paramilitary force in charge of security. Schools have recently raised their walls; sand-filled Hesco barricades, like the ones used in Kabul and Baghdad, surround the FC headquarters. In a restaurant the waiter apologises: tandoori meat is off the menu because the nationalists blew up the city's gas pipeline a day earlier. The gas company had plugged the hole that morning, he explains, but then the rebels blew it up again.

The home secretary, Akbar Hussain Durrani, a neatly suited, well-spoken man, sits in a dark and chilly office. Pens, staplers and telephones are neatly laid on the wide desk before him, but his computer is blank. The rebels have blown up a main pylon, he explains, so the power is off. Still, he insists, things are fine. "The government agencies are operating in concert, everyone is acting in the best public interest," he says. "This is just a . . . political problem." As we speak, a smiling young man walks in and starts to take my photo; I later learn he works for the military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency.

We cut across the city, twisting through the backstreets, my guide glancing nervously out the rear window. The car halts before a tall gate that snaps shut behind us. Inside, a 55-year-old woman named Lal Bibi is waiting, wrapped in a shawl that betrays only her eyes, trembling as she holds forth a picture of her dead son Najibullah. The 20-year-old, who ran a shop selling motorbike parts, went missing last April after being arrested at an FC checkpost, she says. His body turned up three months later, dumped in a public park on the edge of Quetta, badly tortured. "He had just two teeth in his mouth," she says in a voice crackling with pain. She turns to her father, a turbaned old man sitting beside her, and leans into his shoulder. He grimaces.

Suspected members of the Baloch Liberation ArmySuspected members of the Baloch Liberation Army are paraded by Pakistani police. Photograph: Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images

Bibi says her family was probably targeted for its nationalist ties – Najibullah's older brother, now dead, had joined the "men in the mountains" years earlier, she says. Now a nephew, 28-year-old Maqbool, is missing. She prays for him, regularly calling the hospitals for any sign of him and, occasionally, the city morgues.

Over a week of interviews in Karachi and Quetta, I meet the relatives of seven dead men and nine "disappeared" – men presumed to have been abducted by the security forces. One man produces a mobile phone picture of the body of his 22-year-old cousin, Mumtaz Ali Kurd, his eyes black with swelling and his shirt drenched in blood. A relative of Zaman Khan, one of three lawyers killed in the past nine months, produces court papers. A third trembles as he describes finding his brother's body in an orchard near Quetta.

Patterns emerge. The victims were generally men between 20 and 40 years old – nationalist politicians, students, shopkeepers, labourers. In many cases they were abducted in broad daylight – dragged off buses, marched out of shops, detained at FC checkposts – by a combination of uniformed soldiers and plain-clothes intelligence men. Others just vanished. They re-emerge, dead, with an eerie tempo – approximately 15 bodies every month, although the average was disturbed last Saturday when eight bodies were found in three locations across Balochistan.

Activists have little doubt who is behind the atrocities. Human Rights Watch says "indisputable" evidence points to the hand of the FC, the ISI and its sister agency, Military Intelligence. A local group, Voice for Missing Persons, says the body count has surpassed 110. "This is becoming a state of terror," says its chairman, Naseerullah Baloch.

The army denies the charges, saying its good name is being blemished by impersonators. "Militants are using FC uniforms to kidnap people and malign our good name," says Major General Obaid Ullah Khan Niazi, commander of the 46,000 FC troops stationed in Balochistan. "Our job is to enforce the law, not to break it."

Despairing relatives feel cornered. Abdul Rahim, a farmer wearing a jewelled skullcap, is from Khuzdar, a hotbed of insurgent violence. He produces court papers detailing the abduction of his son Saadullah in 2009. First he went to the courts but then his lawyer was shot dead. Then he went to the media but the local press club president was killed. Now, Rahim says, "nobody will help in case they are targeted too. We are hopeless."

Balochistan has long been an edgy place. Its vast, empty deserts and long borders are a magnet for provocateurs of every stripe. Taliban fighters slip back and forth along the 800-mile Afghan border; Iranian dissidents hide inside the 570-mile frontier with Iran. Drug criminals cross the border from Helmand, the world's largest source of heroin, on their way to Iran or lonely beaches on the Arabian Sea. Wealthy Arab sheikhs fly into remote airstrips on hunting expeditions for the houbara bustard, a bird they believe improves their lovemaking. At Shamsi, a secretive airbase in a remote valley in the centre of the province, CIA operatives launch drones that attack Islamists in the tribal belt.

The US spies appreciate the lack of neighbours – Balochistan covers 44% of Pakistan yet has half the population of Karachi. The province's other big draw is its natural wealth. At Reko Diq, 70 miles from the Afghan border, a Canadian-Chilean mining consortium has struck gold, big-time. The Tethyan company has discovered 4bn tonnes of mineable ore that will produce an estimated 200,000 tonnes of copper and 250,000 ounces of gold per year, making it one of the largest such mines in the world. The project is currently stalled by a tangled legal dispute, but offers a tantalising taste of Balochistan's vast mineral riches, which also includes oil, gas, platinum and coal. So far it is largely untapped, though, and what mining exists is scrappy and dangerous. On 21 March,50 coal workers perished in horrific circumstances when methane gas flooded their mine near Quetta, then catastrophically exploded.

Two conflicts are rocking the province. North of Quetta, in a belt of land adjoining the Afghan border, is the ethnic Pashtun belt. Here, Afghan Taliban insurgents shelter in hardline madrasas and lawless refugee camps, taking rest in between bouts of battle with western soldiers in Afghanistan. It is home to the infamous "Quetta shura", the Taliban war council, and western officials say the ISI is assisting them. Some locals agree. "It's an open secret," an elder from Kuchlak tells me. "The ISI gave a fleet of motorbikes to local elders, who distributed them to the fighters crossing the border. Nobody can stop them."

The other conflict is unfolding south of Quetta, in a vast sweep that stretches from the Quetta suburbs to the Arabian Sea, in the ethnic Baloch and Brahui area, whose people have always been reluctant Pakistanis. The first Baloch revolt erupted in 1948, barely six months after Pakistan was born; this is the fifth. The rebels are splintered into several factions, the largest of which is the Balochistan Liberation Army. They use classic guerrilla tactics – ambushing military convoys, bombing gas pipelines, occasionally lobbing rockets into Quetta city. Casualties are relatively low: 152 FC soldiers died between 2007 and 2010, according to official figures, compared with more than 8,000 soldiers and rebels in the 1970s conflagration.

But this insurgency seems to have spread deeper into Baloch society than ever before. Anti-Pakistani fervour has gripped the province. Baloch schoolchildren refuse to sing the national anthem or fly its flag; women, traditionally secluded, have joined the struggle. Universities have become hotbeds of nationalist sentiment. "This is not just the usual suspects," says Rashed Rahman, editor of the Daily Times, one of few papers that regularly covers the conflict.

At a Quetta safehouse I meet Asad Baloch, a wiry, talkative 22-year-old activist with the Baloch Students' Organisation (Azad). "We provide moral and political support to the fighters," he says. "We are making people aware. When they are aware, they act." It is a risky business: about one-third of all "kill and dump" victims were members of the BSO.

Baloch anger is rooted in poverty. Despite its vast natural wealth, Balochistan is desperately poor – barely 25% of the population is literate (the national average is 47%), around 30% are unemployed and just 7% have access to tap water. And while Balochistan provides one-third of Pakistan's natural gas, only a handful of towns are hooked up to the supply grid.

The insurgents are demanding immediate control of the natural resources and, ultimately, independence. "We are not part of Pakistan," says Baloch.

Baloch insurgentsWell-armed Baloch insurgents in the contested region south of the capital Quetta. Photograph: Banaras Khan/AFP

His phone rings. News comes through that another two bodies have been discovered near the coast. One, Abdul Qayuum, was a BSO activist. Days later, videos posted on YouTube show an angry crowd carrying his bloodied corpse into a mortuary. He had been shot in the head.

The FC commander, Maj Gen Niazi, wearing a sharp, dark suit and with neatly combed hair (he has just come from a conference) says he has little time for the rebel demand. "The Baloch are being manipulated by their leaders," he says, noting that the scions of the main nationalist groups live in exile abroad – Hyrbyair Marri in London; Brahamdagh Bugti in Geneva. "They are enjoying the life in Europe while their people suffer in the mountains," he says with a sigh.

Worse again, he adds, they were supported by India. The Punjabi general offers no proof for his claim, but US and British intelligence broadly agree, according to the recent WikiLeaks cables. India sees Balochistan as payback for Pakistani meddling in Kashmir – which explains why Pakistani generals despise the nationalists so much. "Paid killers," says Niazi. He vehemently denies involvement in human rights violations. "To us, each and every citizen of Balochistan is equally dear," he says.

Civilian officials in the province, however, have another story. Last November, the provincial chief minister, Aslam Raisani, told the BBC that the security forces were "definitely" guilty of some killings; earlier this month, the province's top lawyer, Salahuddin Mengal, told the supreme court the FC was "lifting people at will". He resigned a week later.

However, gross human rights abuses are not limited to the army. As the conflict drags on, the insurgents have become increasingly brutal and ruthless. In the past two years, militants have kidnapped aid workers, killed at least four journalists and, most disturbingly, started to target "settlers" – unarmed civilians, mostly from neighbouring Punjab, many of whom have lived in Balochistan for decades. Some 113 settlers were killed in cold blood last year, according to government figures – civil servants, shopkeepers, miners. On 21 March, militants riding motorbikes sprayed gunfire into a camp of construction workers near Gwadar, killing 11; the Baloch Liberation Front claimed responsibility. Most grotesque, perhaps, are the attacks on education: 22 school teachers, university lecturers and education officials have been assassinated since January 2008, causing another 200 to flee their jobs.

As attitudes harden, the middle ground is being swept away in tide of bloodshed. "Our politicians have been silenced," says Habib Tahir, a human rights lawyer in Quetta. "They are afraid of the young." I ask a student in Quetta to defend the killing of teachers. "They are not teachers, they work for the intelligence agencies," one student tells me. "They are like thieves coming into our homes. They must go."

The Islamabad government seems helpless to halt Balochistan's slide into chaos. Two years ago, President Asif Ali Zardari announced a sweeping package of measures intended to assuage Baloch grievances, including thousands of jobs, a ban on new military garrisons and payment of $1.4bn (£800m) in overdue natural gas royalties. But violence has hijacked politics, the plan is largely untouched, and anaemic press coverage means there is little outside pressure for action.

Pakistan's foreign allies, obsessed with hunting Islamists, have ignored the problem. "We are the most secular people in the region, and still we are being ignored," says Noordin Mengal, who represents Balochistan on the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

In this information vacuum, the powerful do as they please. Lawyer Kachkol Ali witnessed security forces drag three men from his office in April 2009. Their bodies turned up five days later, dead and decomposed. After telling his story to the press, Ali was harassed by military intelligence, who warned him his life was in danger. He fled the country. "In Pakistan, there is only rule of the jungle," he says by phone from Lørenskog, a small Norwegian town where he won asylum last summer. "Our security agencies pick people up and treat them like war criminals," he says. "They don't even respect the dead."

Balochistan's dirty little war pales beside Pakistan's larger problems – the Taliban, al-Qaida, political upheaval. But it highlights a very fundamental danger – the ability of Pakistanis to live together in a country that, under its Islamic cloak, is a patchwork of ethnicities and cultures. "Balochistan is a warning of the real battle for Pakistan, which is about power and resources," says Haris Gazdar, a Karachi-based researcher. "And if we don't get it right, we're headed for a major conflict."

Before leaving Quetta I meet Faiza Mir, a 36-year-old lecturer in international relations at Quetta's Balochistan University. Militants have murdered four of her colleagues in the past three years, all because they were "Punjabi". Driving on to the campus, she points out the spots where they were killed, knowing she could be next.

"I can't leave," says Mir, a sparky woman with an irrepressible smile. "This is my home too." And so she engages in debate with students, sympathising with their concerns. "I try to make them understand that talk is better than war," she says.

But some compromises are impossible. Earlier on, students had asked Mir to remove a portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founding father, from her office wall. Mir politely refused, and Jinnah – an austere lawyer in a Savile Row suit - still stares down from her wall.

But how long will he stay there? "That's difficult to say," she answers.

  • Relatives of men who have been abducted in Balochistan

    Inside Balochistan

    The Pakistani province of Balochistan, tight up against the Taliban stronghold of Helmand and sitting on untold mineral wealth, is riven by violent revolt

*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News

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DTN News: U.S. Department of Defense Contracts Dated March 29, 2011

DTN News: U.S. Department of Defense Contracts Dated March 29, 2011
(NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON - March 29, 2011: U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) Contracts issued March 29, 2011 are undermentioned;

CONTRACTS

MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY

The Missile Defense Agency is awarding a cost-plus-incentive fee modification to Raytheon Missile Systems Co., Tucson, Ariz., for contract N00024-07-C-6119, CLIN 0016, for $312,663,118. The modification is to manufacture 24 Standard Missile-3 Block IB missiles. The work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz. The period of performance is March 2011 through June 2013. Fiscal 2011 research, development, test and evaluation funds will be used to incrementally fund the modification for $47,826,087. The Missile Defense Agency is the contracting activity.

Raytheon Missile Systems Co., Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a modification to decrease contract N00024-07-C-6119, CLIN 0004, by $72,306,105 from $229,900,477, to a new total value of $157,594,372. The modification is to reduce the quantity of Standard Missile-3 Block IA missiles manufactured, from 24 to 18. The remaining work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz. The performance period is from March 2011 through April 2012. The Missile Defense Agency is the contracting activity.

ARMY

The Engility Corp., Billerica, Mass., was awarded on March 24 an $84,181,310 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The award will provide for management, engineering, integration, logistical staff, and liaison support services for Program Executive Office Soldier. Work will be performed in Fort Lewis, Wash.; Eatontown, N.J.; Fort Knox, Ky.; and Fort Belvoir, Va., with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2011. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., is the contracting activity (W91CRB-11-D-0074).

NCI Information Systems, Inc., Reston, Va., was awarded on March 24 a $79,716,132 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The award will provide for management, technical, and administrative support services to the Program Executive Office Soldier. Work will be performed in Middle River, Md.; Fort Belvoir, Md.; Haymarket, Va.; Hopewell, Va.; Fort Lewis, Wash.; Eatontown, N.J.; Fort Knox, Ky.; Fort Benning, Ga.; Afghanistan; and Kuwait, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2011. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., is the contracting activity (W91CRB-11-C-0076).

Alliant Techsystems, Inc., Plymouth, Minn., was awarded on March 24 a $65,807,670 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The award will provide for the engineering and manufacturing development of the Counter Defilade Target Engagement System. Work will be performed in Plymouth, Minn., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2013. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., is the contracting activity (W91CRB-11-C-0024).

Textron Marine & Land Systems, New Orleans, La., was awarded on March 24 a $64,332,732 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the procurement of additional Knight vehicles, ASVs (M1200s and M1117s), and special tools. Work will be performed in Slidell, La., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2011. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-09-C-0532).

Nordic PCL Construction, Inc., Honolulu, Hawaii, was awarded on March 24 a $59,085,000 firm-fixed-price construction contract. The award will provide for the construction of a Warriors-in-Transition barracks and complex at Schofield Barracks, Oahu, Hawaii. Work will be performed in Schofield Barracks, Oahu, Hawaii, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 27, 2013. The bid was solicited through the Internet with 20 bids received. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Honolulu, Hawaii, is the contracting activity (W9128A-11-C-0003).

AirScan, Inc., Titusville, Fla., was awarded on March 24 a $50,000,000 firm-fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. The award will provide for procurement of real-time over-target full-motion video from commercial manned airborne surveillance platforms for Iraq-wide air surveillance support. Work will be performed in Victory Base Complex, Iraq, with an estimated completion date of Dec. 31, 2011. The bid was solicited through the Internet with two bids received. The U.S. Central Command, Regional Contracting Center, Baghdad, Iraq, is the contracting activity (W91GDW-08-D-4012).

Navistar Defense, LLC, Warrenville, Ill., was awarded on March 25 a $38,408,617 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the acquisition of 265 general transport trucks. Work will be performed in West Point, Miss., with an estimated completion date of April 30, 2011. The bid was solicited through the Internet with one bid received. The U.S. Army TACOM LCMC, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-08-D-G097).

Doyon Project Services, LLC, Federal Way, Wash., was awarded on March 24 a $19,863,100 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the construction of administrative Warriors-in-Transition, including one soldier and family assistance center, one battalion headquarters, and four large company headquarters, at Fort Lewis, Wash. Work will be performed in Fort Lewis, Wash., with an estimated completion date of July 8, 2012. The bid was solicited through the Internet with nine bids received. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District, Fort Worth, Texas, is the contracting activity (W9126G-11-C-0015).

Sabreliner Corp., Saint Louis, Mo., was awarded on March 24 a $15,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the modification of two VIP UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters for the Royal Jordanian Air Force. Work will be performed in Saint Louis, Mo., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2013. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-11-C-0073).

Navistar Defense, LLC, Warrenville, Ill., was awarded on March 24 a $14,989,560 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide the acquisition of 138 24-passenger buses. Work will be performed in Tulsa, Okla., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2011. The bid was solicited through the Internet with four bids received. The U.S. Army TACOM LCMC, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-08-D-G238).

Raytheon Co., Andover, Mass., was awarded on March 24 an $11,934,600 firm-fixed-price cost-reimbursable contract. The award will provide for a six-month extension for technical assistance in support of Foreign Military Sales, Taiwan. Work will be performed in Andover, Mass., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2011. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, Contracting Center, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (W31P4Q-08-C-0301).

Calibre Systems, Inc., Alexandria, Va., was awarded on March 25 a $10,209,649 firm-fixed-price contract. The award will provide for the support services in the concentrated areas of cost and economic analysis of major weapon system programs and associated financial management policies and procedures of the Department of Defense. Work will be performed in Crystal City, Va., with an estimated completion date of Sept. 29, 2011. One sole-source bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, National Capital Region, Alexandria, Va., is the contracting activity (W91WAW-11-C-0019).

DRS Test & Energy Management, LLC, Huntsville, Ala., was awarded on March 25 a $7,651,077 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. The award will provide for embedded diagnostics support for the Abrams Tank System. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Ala., with an estimated completion date of March 25, 2012. One bid was solicited with one bid received. The U.S. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity (W56HZV-11-C-0219).

Richard Milburn High School, Woodbridge, Va., was awarded on March 24 a $7,322,620 indefinite-delivery fixed-price-labor-hour contract. The award will provide for foreign language services to U.S. Army Forces Command. Work will be performed in Fort Lewis, Wash.; Fort Hood, Texas; and Fort Bragg, N.C., with an estimated completion date of Nov. 30, 2012. The bid was solicited through the Internet with six bids received. The U.S. Army Mission and Installation Contracting Command, Fort Bragg, N.C., is the contracting activity (W911SE-07-D-0044).

AIR FORCE

Alliant Techsystems, Inc., Plymoth, Minn., is being awarded a $35,796,194 fixed-price incentive (firm target) contract which will provide the hard target sensing fuze, an advanced fuze system for use with BLU-109, BLU-113, and BLU-122 warheads and their associated guidance systems. The fuze system will be capable of surviving penetration through 5,000 to 15,000 pounds per square inch of multiple soil layers and/or reinforced concrete, and detonating within a specific void inside the target or at a specific delay time programmed into the fuze. The fuze will also provide in-flight programmability, safing and arming, multi-mode function capability (time-delay and void sensing), and multi-delay arming. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. AAC/EBDK, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., is the contracting activity (FA8681-11-C-0039).

Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio, is being awarded a $22,894,893 firm-fixed-price contract modification to perform studies, test, analyze, and evaluate technologies, equipment and systems in the areas of biosciences, chemical biological (CB) detection, CB protection and decontamination, chemical sciences, physics, and computational sciences, toxicology, obscurants, and veterinary care for the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center. The location of the performance is Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio. The 55th Contracting Squadron, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, is the contracting activity (SP0700-00-D-3180).

L-3 Communications Integrated Systems, Greenville, Texas, is being awarded a $17,503,618 firm-fixed-price contract to incorporate the purchase of deployment space aircraft parts required to support the deployment of C-27J aircraft to Afghanistan by issuing a delivery order against the subject contract. The location of the performance is Greenville, Texas. ASC/WLNJ, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-07-D-0099-0042).

Raytheon Technical Services Co., Dulles, Va., is being awarded an $11,907,551 firm-fixed-price contract modification for the radar operations and maintenance series that will ensure the availability of the COBRA DANE’s radar facility to collect 100 percent of the tasked data collection opportunities that pass through its field of view. The location of the performance is Indianapolis, Ind. AFISRA/A7KRB, Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., is the contracting activity (FA7022-11-C-0010).

CSA Engineering, Mountain View, Calif., is being awarded a $9,874,833 cost-plus-award-fee contract to further develop and implement technologies to achieve Air Force goals for the next generation of space structures and systems with emphasis on space vehicles that conform to the operationally responsive space concept of rapid assembly, integration, and test. The location of the performance is Mountain View, Calif. The Air Force Research Laboratory Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., is the contracting activity (FA9453-11-C-0266).

AAI Corp., Logistics and Technical Services, Hunt Valley, Md., is being awarded a $9,710,011 firm-fixed-price contract for one electronic warfare radio frequency simulator for the Electronic Warfare Avionics Integration Support Facility. WR-ALC/GRWKB, Robins Air Force Base, Ga., is the contracting activity (FA8540-11-C-0008).

Rolls Royce Corp., Indianapolis, Ind., is being awarded a $8,539,918 firm-fixed-price contract which will provide spares, fuser, and program management support for the Indian Air Force to support the arrival of their new C-130J fleet. The location of the performance is Indianapolis, Ind. WR-ALC/GRBKB, Robins Air Force Base, Ga., is the contracting activity (FA8504-07-D-0001-0501).

Raytheon Co., Missile Systems Division, Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a $7,051,374 firm-fixed-price contract modification for the persistent close air support program, which will demonstrate a new capability in close air support to provide firepower at the fingertips of the ground troops in contact. Thirty-seven bids were received and eight were awarded. The location of performance is Tucson, Ariz.. AFRL/PKDA, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (FA8650-11-C-7116).

TUG Technologies Corp., Kennesaw, Ga., is being awarded a $6,770,824 firm-fixed-price contract modification which will involve the design, testing, and manufacture of U-30 aircraft tow tractors. This is firm-fixed-price requirement-type contract to purchase total best estimated quantities of 72 U-30 aircraft tow tractors. WR-ALC/GRVKBB, Robins Air Force Base, Ga., is the contracting activity (FA8533-11-D-0002).

NAVY

Michael Baker, Jr., Inc., Alexandria, Va., is being awarded a maximum $25,000,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity architect-engineering contract for architectural and engineering professional planning services in the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Washington area of responsibility (AOR). The work to be performed provides for planning services to include master planning, facility planning, intergovernmental planning, financial analysis, engineering analysis and other planning services. Task order 0001 is being awarded at $89,959 for facilities management plan update at the Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. Work for this task order is expected to be completed by December 2011. All work will be performed at various locations in the NAVFAC Washington region (Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.) and is expected to be completed by March 2016. Contract funds for task order #0001 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with 12 proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Washington, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N40080-11-D-0499).

BSE Engineers, Inc.*, San Diego, Calif., is being awarded a maximum $15,000,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity architect-engineering contract for electrical engineering services in the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Southwest area of responsibility (AOR). The work to be performed provides for electrical engineering designs; studies and site investigation reports; preparation of requests for proposals for design-build projects; preparation of fully designed plans and specifications for invitation for bid projects; and electrical engineering services including design analysis, cost estimates, evaluations, commissioning, construction inspections, and construction support services. Work will be performed at various Navy and Marine Corps facilities and other government facilities within the NAVFAC Southwest AOR including, but not limited to, California (87 percent), Arizona (5 percent), Nevada (5 percent), Colorado (1 percent), New Mexico (1 percent), and Utah (1 percent). Work is expected to be completed by March 2016. Contract funds in the amount of $5,000 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with 21 proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest, San Diego, Calif., is the contracting activity (N62473-11-D-0011).

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., Fort Worth, Texas, was awarded a firm-fixed-price contract against a basic ordering agreement with a maximum $12,059,100 for blade assemblies. There are no other locations of performance. Using service is Navy. The date of performance completion is June 30, 2019. The Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Philadelphia, Pa., is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-06-G-0003-THJY).

Hitachi Medical Systems America, Inc., Twinsburg, Ohio, was issued a modification exercising the second option year on the current contract SPM2D1-09-D-8331. Award is a fixed-price with economic price adjustment type with a maximum $12,000,000 providing the radiology systems equipment. There are no other locations of performance. Using services are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and federal civilian agencies. The date of performance completion is March 29, 2012. The Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pa., is the contracting activity.

Bell Boeing Joint Project Office, Amarillo, Texas, was awarded a firm-fixed-price contract against a basic ordering agreement with a maximum $10,464,573 for hub assemblies. There are no other locations of performance. Using service is Navy. The date of performance completion is June 30, 2013. The Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Philadelphia, Pa., is the contracting activity (SPRPA1-09-G-004Y-5752).

*Small business

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