Category Archives: US national security

North Korea says choice of ‘Christmas gift’ is up to US amid missile tensions

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  • Pyongyang had given US till end of year to change position
  • ‘Dialogue touted by US … is a foolish trick’ linked to 2020 vote
  • Help us cover the critical issues of 2020. This Giving Tuesday, consider making a contribution

North Korea yesterday issued a thinly veiled warning it could resume long-distance missile tests in the next few weeks if the US does not change its negotiating position on the regime’s nuclear disarmament, saying “it is entirely up to the US what Christmas gift it will select to get”.

Related: North Korea's Kim Jong-un opens new city and 'socialist utopia' of Samjiyon

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Trump re-election could sound death knell for Nato, allies fear

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The US president’s ambivalence or even hostility towards the alliance will hover over the 70th anniversary meeting in the UK

Donald Trump arrived in the UK to meet Nato allies who are fearful that he could pose a serious threat to the survival of the alliance if he wins re-election next year.

Days before Wednesday’s leaders’ meeting just outside London to mark Nato’s 70th anniversary, the US announced it was cutting its contribution to joint Nato projects.

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Donald Trump says Taliban talks back on in surprise Afghanistan visit

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  • President makes Thanksgiving visit to airbase near Kabul
  • Confirms talks with extremists have resumed

Donald Trump made an unannounced visit to US troops in Afghanistan on Thursday, his first visit to the country where the US has been at war since late 2001.

Related: Fired navy secretary blasts Trump over 'shocking' handling of Navy seal case

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US will keep 500 or 600 troops in Syria to counter Isis, chief says

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  • Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff gives Veterans Day interview
  • Turkish president Erdoğan due at White House this week

About 500 or 600 US troops will remain in Syria to counter Islamic State, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Sunday.

Related: 'Secure the oil': Trump's Syria strategy leaves Pentagon perplexed

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Pelosi slams Trump for cutting Democrats out of loop on Baghdadi raid

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Top Democrats reacted with anger to Donald Trump’s decision to go ahead with the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi raid without giving them advance notice, on grounds that they were not to be trusted with such highly sensitive information.

Related: Trump impeachment: Schiff expects battle over key witness John Bolton

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Trump: Syria ceasefire will be ‘permanent’ – video

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Donald Trump has said he will lift the economic sanctions imposed on Turkey after its government informed the US that it would make the ceasefire in Syria ‘permanent’. Claiming success at the US-brokered effort, the US president said on Wednesday that ‘this was an outcome created by us’

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Mick Mulvaney seeks Trump damage control over impeachment and more

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Senior Trump administration officials were on Sunday scrambling to defend the president from escalating domestic and foreign policy scandals, ranging from impeachment proceedings in Washington to the US troop withdrawal in northern Syria.

Related: 'Meltdown': Donald Trump's week of intense political peril

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Trump impeachment: Esper indicates Pentagon will cooperate with inquiry

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Donald Trump’s secretary of defense said on Sunday the Pentagon would cooperate with the House’s impeachment inquiry, while cautioning that Trump may try to restrict his disclosure of information.

Related: Trump calls Rudy Giuliani a 'great guy' as impeachment pressure mounts

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James Mattis says Trump’s troop pullout has led to ‘disarray’ in Syria

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  • Ex-defense secretary calls resurgence of Isis ‘a given’
  • Withdrawal will ‘have an impact’ on Kurds’ ability to fight Isis

The former defense secretary James Mattis has said Donald Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of US troops from the Syria-Turkey border has led to “disarray” in the war-torn territory, increasing the chances of a resurgence of Islamic State militants.

Related: Betrayal on the border: Kurds fear future as Turkish assault intensifies

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Crossfire Hurricane review: tale of Trump and the FBI is a gas gas gas

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Josh Campbell worked for James Comey – his book is a must-read indictment of the ‘mob boss’ in the White House

Few people had better seats than Josh Campbell for the drama that has shaped the Trump presidency. A supervisory special agent at the FBI, he was special assistant to James Comey and stayed on into Robert Mueller’s first year as special counsel.

Related: Whistleblower's mysterious complaint over Trump sparks feverish speculation

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US government files civil lawsuit against Snowden over publication of memoir

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Suit contends whistleblower published Permanent Record ‘in violation of non-disclosure agreements’ with both CIA and NSA

The US government on Tuesday filed a civil lawsuit against Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower, over the publication this week of his memoir.

Snowden, the suit contends, “published a book entitled Permanent Record in violation of the non-disclosure agreements he signed with both CIA and NSA”.

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Trump says US response to oil attack depends on Saudi Arabia’s assessment

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US secretaries of state and energy both explicitly blamed Iran for the attack but Trump suggests US did not have definitive evidence

Donald Trump has said the US response to the attack on Saudi oil facilities will depend on the assessment in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and downplayed US dependence on Middle East energy supplies.

The US secretaries of state and energy both explicitly blamed Iran for the attack. Unnamed US officials were also quoted in US media outlets as saying Iranian cruise missiles were used in Saturday’s attack on an oil field and processing plant. Estimates of the number of missiles used ranged from “nearly a dozen” to “over two dozen”.

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Donald Trump says Iran appears to be responsible for Saudi oil attacks – video

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Donald Trump has hinted that the US believes Iran is responsible for attacks on oil plants in Saudi Arabia over the weekend that raised fears of a fresh conflict in the Middle East. "It would look the most like it was Iran," he told reporters at the White House. 

Iran has denied responsibility for the attacks which damaged the world's biggest crude processing plant in Saudi Arabia and triggered the largest jump in crude prices in decades. Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, suggested on Monday that "Yemeni people" were to blame.

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‘Nobody can stop it’: Saudi oil attack signals an escalating crisis

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Trump is letting Riyadh decide about whether to retaliate against Iran – and if that happens, Iranians would likely raise the stakes

The attack on Saudi oil facilities is the latest, most violent, example of an escalating series of gambits rival powers in the Gulf aimed at achieving their objectives by all measures short of all-out war.

But the chances of avoiding such a devastating conflict diminish each time the stakes are raised.

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Trump confirms US has killed Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza

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Death of son of the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was reported but not confirmed in July

Donald Trump confirmed on Saturday that the US has killed Hamza bin Laden, a son of the former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Related: Hamza bin Laden: the end of a dynasty, but not al-Qaida

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Trump plans to open US consulate in Greenland despite row over offer to buy

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  • State details plan to Senate foreign relations committee
  • President cancelled Denmark visit over notion of purchase

The Trump administration is planning to open a US consulate in Greenland for the first time in decades, amid increased strategic and economic interest in the Danish territory.

Related: Sorry, Mr Trump – Greenland’s no go. But can I interest you in our little island? | Jack Bernhardt

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‘It will not work’: experts question Venezuela sanctions as Bolton touts them

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Bolton claimed Trump’s measures will help end Maduro’s reign, but some fear they will make Venezuela’s economic meltdown worse

US national security adviser, John Bolton, has insisted Venezuela’s “tired dictator” was at “the end of his rope”, as he opened another front in the White House’s economic blitz on Nicolás Maduro by freezing all Venezuelan government assets in the United States.

Addressing a summit on Venezuela’s crisis in Peru’s capital, Lima, Bolton pronounced Maduro’s “dying regime” doomed – even though a seven-month US-backed campaign has so far failed to topple Hugo Chávez’s authoritarian successor.

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Trump lines up loyalist as Coats leaves US intelligence chief post

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Dan Coats to go next month after turbulent two years of disagreements with president

Dan Coats, one of the most senior national security officials willing to contradict Donald Trump, will leave the post of US director of national intelligence next month, the president has said.

Trump said Coats would go on 15 August and that he will nominate John Ratcliffe, a Texas representative and staunch loyalist, to the post.

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US military: Venezuelan plane ‘aggressively’ shadowed Navy aircraft

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  • US says incident occurred in international airspace
  • Caracas slams ‘incursion’ by ‘intelligence aircraft’

The US military on Sunday accused a Venezuelan fighter aircraft of “aggressively” shadowing a US Navy EP-3 Aries II plane over international airspace, a fresh sign of growing hostility between the two countries.

Related: Trump administration to continue deporting Venezuelans despite crisis

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White House insists Trump Huawei reversal not ‘catastrophic mistake’

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  • Larry Kudlow defends move on sales ban after China talks
  • Rubio and Barasso among Republicans concerned by ploy

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow insisted on Sunday Donald Trump is not backing off national security concerns, despite agreeing to allow US companies to sell some components to Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.

Related: US-China trade talks back on track, says Trump

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