Tag: U.S. Department of Defense

If confirmed, Marine Corps Colonel Lorna M. Mahlock will be the first black woman to attain one of the highest military positions in the world.

The United States “remains fully committed” to continue providing millions of dollars in American taxpayer-funded military assistance to Lebanon, home to Iran’s narco-terrorist proxy Hezbollah, considered the most influential player in the country’s fractious political environment, confirmed a Pentagon spokesman.

The official, verified Twitter account for the Department of Defense retweeted a call for President Trump to resign to its over five million followers on Thursday.

The U.S. Coast Guard commandant has announced he will disregard President Donald Trump’s ban on transgenders in the military. Admiral Paul F. Zukunft, who took charge of the Coast Guard under former President Barack Obama, says he “will not break

President Barack Obama’s Pentagon discredited and suppressed an internal probe that uncovered $125 billion in wasteful spending on the enormous administrative operations primarily ran by civilians and contractors.

Force management levels set by President Barack Obama for the ongoing wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan have induced the Pentagon to increasingly depend on contractors, as the number of troops it can deploy is strictly capped.

The U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State will “simultaneously” carry out operations in its de-facto capitals of Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq, “as soon as possible,” declared U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is expected to visit Turkey Friday, a day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unleashed a scathing critique of the ongoing efforts by the U.S.-led coalition to push the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) out of Iraq, demanding a bigger role for Turkish troops.

Seven fast-attack Iranian military vessels engaged in yet another provocative confrontation with the U.S vessel the USS Firebolt over the weekend, resulting in one Iranian boat coming to a halt in front of the U.S. coastal patrol ship.

The U.S. military, due to a shortage of Air Force pilots and other personnel to operate drones, is relying more on private contractors for reconnaissance missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, reports The New York Times (NYT).

The Pentagon has lost track of at least 750,000 guns it provided to security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq during 14 years of the ongoing war on terror in response to the 9/11 attacks, according to a tally by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), a London-based charity.

The U.S. Naval War College has defended the ardent denunciation of Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump by its national security professor Dr. Tom Nichols, a self-identified “Never Trump Republican,” arguing that he has the right to do so.

Complaints from news organizations have prompted the Pentagon to remove a Law of War manual clause that suggests journalists could be considered combatants.

A 25-year-old U.S. Air Force lieutenant died Monday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), from a “non-combat related injury” sustained while supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led mission against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria, according to the Pentagon.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Obama administration has transferred three prisoners out of the U.S. military detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in the last few days — one was taken to Italy and two were sent to Serbia, bringing the prison population down to 76, according to the Pentagon.

The number of CIA drone strikes have plummeted to a low single digit so far in 2016, President Barack Obama’s last full year in office, reports The Washington Post (WaPo), citing unnamed current and former U.S. officials.

President Barack Obama’s Department of Defense (DOD) is expected to intensify its already heavy reliance on U.S. special operations forces as part of an effort to overhaul the modus operandi of America’s war against Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists and other terrorists, reports The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. military is confronting an “extremist Islamist movement” in the Americas that has been linked to the use of illicit trafficking networks by criminals and terrorists, likely working together, revealed U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) chief Navy Adm. Kurt W. Tidd during a roundtable discussion with reporters.

An American carrier-based torpedo bomber, the TBM-1C Avenger aircraft, was recently found in the waters surrounding the Pacific island nation of Palau after having been missing in action (MIA) for nearly 72 years since World War II.

A senior Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadist and three other members of the terrorist group were killed in a U.S.-led coalition airstrike in Iraq last week, the Pentagon has announced.

The U.S.-backed Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria is aligned with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a terrorist organization, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter told a Senate panel, echoing Turkey’s position on the relationship between the two groups.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The number of Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists in Libya who aspire to attack Europe or the United States has more than doubled to between 4,000 and 6,000 in the last 12 to 18 months, but militias there have managed to limit the terrorist group’s growth, says the commander of U.S. forces in Africa.

The Pentagon has “lost much of its ability” to monitor the effectiveness and capability of the Afghan security forces as the Taliban and other insurgents have stepped up their assaults, stresses the top watchdog for U.S.-funded nation-building projects in Afghanistan.

Detainees liberated from the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have killed Americans, a senior Pentagon official told lawmakers.

Some U.S. Special Operations forces on the ground in Afghanistan found themselves in a “combat situation” a little over a year after President Obama declared their combat mission over, according to the Pentagon.

San Antonio, Texas, will serve as the new home of one of the U.S. Army National Guard’s new cyber units. The Guard has announced plans to activate thirteen new cyber units throughout 23 states by the end of fiscal year 2019. The effort is part of an ongoing growth of cyber forces throughout the Department of Defense.

WASHINGTON D.C.—The Pentagon has denied claims by Vladimir Putin’s defense ministry that the Russian air force held an air space cooperation exercise with its U.S. counterpart in Syria, aimed at staving off dangerous encounters between their warplanes.

The nearly one-year-old U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria has already cost American taxpayers more than $3 billion, according to the Pentagon.

The United States, within the last two years, has sold nearly $1.5 billion in military equipment to Mexico, including millions of bullets, fleets of Black Hawk helicopters, and thousands of Humvees, reports Stars and Stripes.