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President Donald Trump's administration is exploring hardening its approach toward Pakistan to crack down on Pakistan-based militants launching attacks in neighboring Afghanistan, two U.S. officials tell Reuters. Potential Trump administration responses being discussed include expanding U.S. drone strikes, redirecting or withholding some aid to Pakistan and perhaps eventually downgrading Pakistan's status as a major non-NATO ally, the two officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The acquittal of an officer in the death of a Minnesota motorist who volunteered that he had a gun during a traffic stop adds to the worries of African-American gun owners. The acquittal of an officer in the death of a Minnesota motorist who volunteered that he had a gun during a traffic stop adds to the worries of African-American gun owners.
The Pentagon will send almost 4,000 additional American forces to Afghanistan, a Trump administration official said Thursday, hoping to break a stalemate in a war that has now passed to a third U.S. commander in chief. The deployment will be the largest of American manpower under Donald Trump's young presidency.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official told AFP that Pentagon chief Jim Mattis can now directly adjust troop numbers, though the official would not confirm whether a new "force management level" -- currently at around 8,400 -- had been finalized. "The White House has done the same that it did with Iraq and Syria, which is to grant the secretary of defense the authority to set troop levels," the official said, referring to recent adjustments Trump has approved for the fight against the Islamic State group in those two countries.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis described the diplomatic spat between Qatar and several other American allies in the Middle East as a "complex situation" that the United States needed to help solve. "I believe that Prince Thani inherited a difficult, very tough situation, and he's trying to turn the society in the right direction," Mattis told lawmakers at a House Armed Services Committee hearing late Monday.
Hanging in a corridor outside the Pentagon press office, a blow-up of a Time magazine cover shows a weary US soldier drawing deeply on his cigarette. Barbed wire and snowy foothills loom behind him.
A Pentagon spokesman last month claimed that Abdul Hasib, the head of the Islamic State in Afghanistan was killed. Today, it has been confirmed by President Ashraf Ghani that the reports are correct.
Afghan soldiers are suffering what Pentagon auditors call "shockingly high" battlefield casualties, and prospects are narrowing for a negotiated peace settlement with the Taliban. The insurgents may have failed to capture and hold a major city, but they are controlling or influencing ever more territory.
He has described himself as "the" architect of a 2006 Canadian-led mission against the Taliban during the Afghan War. He should have said "an" architect.
As president, Trump has backed off many of his provocative foreign policy promises. As president, Trump has backed off many of his provocative foreign policy promises.
U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster was in Kabul on Sunday for what is the first visit by a Trump administration official to Afghanistan, officials here said, coming just days after U.S. forces dropped a 22,000-pound bomb during combat and revived debate over the war. President Trump has so far said little about the conflict, where more than 8,000 U.S. troops are helping battle the Taliban, raising concerns among Afghan officials about the administration's commitment to the fight.
'Mother of all bombs' killed 94 ISIS fighters, Afghan official says - Kabul (CNN)At least 94 Islamic State fighters were killed when the US military dropped America's most powerful non-nuclear bomb on ISIS targets in Afghanistan, an Afghan official said Saturday.
As President Donald Trump's administration drafts an Afghanistan policy, U.S. officials are seeking a way to reverse gains by militant groups without wading deeper into a 15-year-long war that has no end in sight. In the past month, three U.S. service members have been killed in operations against Islamic State militants near Afghanistan's porous border with Pakistan, where armed groups still find sanctuary.Officially, the U.S.-led international force in Afghanistan ceased combat operations at the end of 2014, but the conflict has proved difficult to exit without risking the overthrow of the government in Kabul.
The strike was designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and U.S. forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities. ISIS-K, also known as the Khorasan group, is based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and is composed primarily of former members of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban.
The strike was designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and U.S. forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities. ISIS-K, also known as the Khorasan group, is based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and is composed primarily of former members of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban.
The first deployment of the most powerful conventional bomb has succeeded in its mission , according to both US and Afghan sources, without any civilian casualties. The post-attack bomb damage assessment tallies up 36 ISIS-K casualties in Nangarhar and the destruction of caves and tunnels used for transit and subterfuge by the terrorist group, an offshoot of the so-called Islamic State in Syria.
The U.S. Department of Defense shared video of the moment its 21,600-pound, "mother of all bombs" struck a cave and tunnel system in Kabul, Afghanistan Thursday, April 13. It marked the first use of the Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, which U.S. officials say is the most powerful, non-nuclear bomb out there with 11 tons of explosives. The MOAB -- officially called the BGU-43/B -- was first developed in the 2000s during the Iraq War and underwent a formal review by the Pentagon of legal justification for its combat use, the Associated Press said.
The U.S. military has dropped an approximately 22,000-pound bomb nicknamed the "mother of all bombs" on ISIS forces in Afghanistan -- the first time it has been used in combat. The bomb is touted as one of the largest non-nuclear weapons in the U.S. military's arsenal.
Matias Ferreira, a former U.S. Marine Corps lance corporal who lost his legs below the knee when he stepped on a hidden explosive in Afghanistan in 2011, is joining a suburban New York police department. The 28-year-old graduated Friday from the Suffolk County Police Academy on Long Island after 29 weeks of training.
Matias Ferreira, a former U.S. Marine Corps lance corporal who lost his legs below the knee when he stepped on a hidden explosive in Afghanistan in 2011, is joining a suburban New York police department. The 28-year-old graduated Friday from the Suffolk County Police Academy on Long Island following 29 weeks of training.